AWE members vote overwhelmingly for industrial action over botched restructure
Prospect members working at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, after a litany of errors and failure to consult from senior management during a restructure at the organisation that builds and maintains the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
A word cloud of how our AWE members feel they’ve been treated by the employer
The ballot results, covering staff working at AWE sites including at Aldermaston and Burghfield, were 95% in favour of action short of a strike, and 81% in favour of strike action. Turnout was well over the legal threshold.
The nature and timing of the industrial action will be announced in due course.
In November AWE told staff it would be embarking on a restructuring programme with about 7,000 roles in scope for 400-500 redundancies, while a further 750 posts are being recruited for. AWE has since increased the number of potential redundancies to 800, but have refused to provide Prospect with the information necessary to understand and challenge the restructure.
Prospect members work in specialist roles as scientists and engineers across AWE and are vital to the UK’s atomic weapons programme and to our security, providing unique and irreplaceable skills.
These workers include world-leading scientists who are proud of the vital work they do on behalf of the nation and our allies but have been pushed to the brink by the repeated errors from AWE leadership.
The government recently committed to a historic £15bn investment in a new nuclear warhead programme, but Prospect warns that this crucial investment risks being derailed if this restructure continues to cause internal chaos. If strike action were to go ahead it would add to this disruption, and potentially cost AWE millions of pounds.
However, Prospect argues that a failed reorganisation could have much greater consequences for the future of the organisation.
Mike Clancy, Prospect General Secretary, said:
“Our members are some of the most qualified in the country and take huge pride in the job they do on behalf of the nation. Systematically excluding them from any meaningful input into the process of reorganisation both fails to take advantage of that wealth of experience and causes justified worry about the very future of the organisation.
“It is not too late to avert this action and we welcome the movement we have seen from senior management on some of our areas of concern in recent days.
“We have been clear with management throughout this process about the steps they need to take, and in the coming days we will be looking for clear evidence that our reasonable asks have been met before making a decision on whether to proceed with industrial action.”
AWE members slam ‘incompetence’ of restructure and consultation process
