On Monday workers at the Atomics Weapons Establishment (AWE) were out on strike for the 16th time since November as part of long-running pensions’ dispute. More than 700 workers are striking, with further strike days already called for the 10th and 18th May. The workers, represented by Unite the Union, are opposing plans to cut their pensions. Their pension scheme was apprently protected during the privatisation of AWE in the 1990s. After AWE chose to ignore a counter-proposal submitted by Unite on April 13th, the union called strikes on the 10th and 18th May, coinciding with the regulatory ‘site exercise’ day when AWE runs through nuclear incident scenarios on site with local councils. Research undertaken on behalf of the Nuclear Information Service by Tom Youngman shows that the Lockheed-Serco-Jacobs consortium has extracted almost twice as much profit over the lifetime of their contract than the figure claimed for the deficit in the pension scheme. The factsheet can be downloaded below.
Nuclear Information Service 8th May 2017 read more »