GLATUC meeting, delegates were urged to withdraw from any affiliation to Amnesty International

To London Trade Union Councils

 At Sat 12 2013  GLATUC meeting, delegates were urged to withdraw from any affiliation to Amnesty International due to an ongoing dispute with Unite members. The latest news I can see on the web are articles from November 2012 in BBC and other news archives and the article below from Morning Star online. If you have any updated information please forward.

 Thanks

 Mick Houghton

Secretary GLATUC

Hundreds of workers at human rights group Amnesty International UK and its research and policy headquarters will be taking industrial action next week in separate disputes.

But for the first time in Amnesty’s 51-year-old history both sections of the group are coming together next Tuesday to stage a 24-hour strike.

Unite said about 300 members at the International Secretariat in London’s Easton Street and 145 members at Amnesty’s office in New Inn Yard will be walking out.

Each section staged separate 24-hour strikes in October over a range of issues including what Unite calls “management’s repeated failures to honour agreements” and job losses.

Members at the International Secretariat are involved in an agreements dispute which escalated earlier this month when management called a halt to negotiations on a new redundancy policy.

Unite said bosses “threatened to impose new contracts incorporating new, weaker redundancy terms before implementing a proposal to make scores of staff members redundant.”

The union has called on management to remove the threat and return to the negotiating table.

Amnesty local groups and members are calling for an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the crisis that could see up to 40 job losses.

Although the disputes are distinct Unite members fear separate management decisions will undermine vital work done by both parts of the organisation.

Unite regional officer Alan Scott said: “Our highly dedicated members at both the Amnesty UK and the International Secretariat are very reluctantly taking industrial action again.”