What you told us: AWE members share their anger and dismay

Following the packed AWE branch meetings many Prospect members shared their anger and dismay with the senior management over the restructure programme and the lack of meaninful consultation.

Speaking to Prospect, one member who had worked at AWE for 46 years said that in all their time, they had never experienced such a ‘level of bad feeling or disconnection’ between staff and the employer.

They continued:

“This lot are just not talking to us and they’re not talking to our representatives; it’s just unacceptable to me… They will put a freeze on recruitment and then they’ll say, ‘Oh, we haven’t got enough people to do the work.’ It’s a ludicrous situation!”

During each of the branch meetings, Prospect’s defence organiser, Oliver Robertson, encouraged AWE members to write down and share their feelings about the situation.

Here are a selection of the responses:

“I really loved my job – genuinely enjoyed what I did – until they announced this. Now I have no idea what’s happening in my department. I can’t do any meaningful work because we don’t even know if we’ll exist in 6 months. It is incredible and I would honestly rather know what the plan is so I can work with it (and find a new job if necessary), rather than this current limbo.”

“Our whole team has been displaced and it is upsetting to constantly be asked to share our work out to other teams because they haven’t got much work to do. This is causing distress, anxiousness and mental health issues within the team.”

“In 30 years of working in many different roles, 10 of which at AWE, and [previous] personal experience of redundancy, I have never experienced such a mismanaged redundancy programme than I’m currently witnessing at AWE. I’m worried how this will impact the safety and security here and also the effect on morale in the future. The company has totally gone about this the wrong way, and likely severely damaged its future.”

I have no faith in the board, or the directors, to tell the truth, or treat us, with the respect that we deserve.

Angry, upset, confused, worried.

“The lack of competence shown makes me fearful for both my own career and, frankly, for the future of defence in this country.”

AWE members slam ‘incompetence’ of restructure and consultation process