Defence sector updates

Bob King, National Secretary for Defence, spoke to ITV news:

Yesterday, Prospect members at AWE took strike action over pay.@BobKingProspect spoke to ITV about the dispute 📺 pic.twitter.com/selRd5lYsR

— Prospect Union (@ProspectUnion) January 25, 2024

What our members had to say:

Read more about why our members at AWE are on strike today: https://t.co/Q9c8MvvYdc pic.twitter.com/0TMqfZ4MiN

— Prospect Union (@ProspectUnion) January 24, 2024

Yesterday, hundreds of members marched to AWE’s executive offices chanting the chorus of Aretha Franklin’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T 📢

Our members deserve better. pic.twitter.com/rsf5fxIFzb

— Prospect Union (@ProspectUnion) January 26, 2024

Here is some more coverage of the strike:

BBC: AWE: Berkshire atomic weapons workers strike over pay

ITV: Workers at Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire strike over pay

Newbury today: 24-hour strike going ahead at AWE Aldermaston today

The latest revelation has been reported in the Guardian newspaper with further details in our news story.

Prospect is supporting the woman, who has come forward to detail her experience in the hope it will help prevent others having to suffer the same behaviour.

Furthermore, Prospect is working to address these concerns, as a trade union and has gathered feedback on the issues which confirm:

• There have been various MOD reviews but nothing changes in practice.
• There is a complete lack of transparency on case numbers and outcomes – including whether cases were upheld or not, so women don’t know whether they have been taken seriously.
• There is a lack of appropriate resource to handle complaints and there doesn’t seem to be a consistent procedural approach.
• Several women also spoke of a ‘pack’ culture and the prevalence of low level misogyny.

Prospect will continue working to highlight and end this toxic culture by working with members, the employer, MPs and the government.

See more about our work to tackle sexual harassment and support members.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss AUKUS, the tri-partite agreement between Australia, the UK and US on the provision of a new nuclear powered submarine as well as joint advances in areas such as cyber, AI and quantum technologies.

The CSEU delegation in included Bob King, Prospect National Secretary for Defence, who raised a number of issues during the meeting at Australia House.

Bob King said;

“It was refreshing to be invited to meet the Minister (something sadly lacking from the UK Government) who wanted our views on how we could ensure that all countries had the skills needed for the project to be a success.

I raised the fact that both the UK and US needed to train more specialists in all areas of the endeavour and that nuclear safety and threat reduction, had to be at the forefront of that training.”

There was a shared understanding that it would be in no one’s interest to continually move staff from country to country and that training up more staff, across all disciplines in all three countries, was the key.

Bob King said;

“There will be some UK staff going to Australia to get things underway and there are Australian staff coming here to learn, but we need more people all round so it was good that all parties recognise we need to plan.”

Prospect will be meeting the Australian AUKUS team, based in the UK for the life of the project, in the future and will be maintaining the relationship to ensure Prospect members are front and centre of the submarine enterprise.

We will be using this blog to highlight what we are achieving as defence sector, what individual branches are achieving and ask for you to contribute and update us on anything which comes out of your branch.

If you would like to engage with the defence sector, make us aware of any issues, successes and developments in your branch please contact us.

Bob King,
National Secretary, Defence