This is an article from Unison Newham posted in April 2008. At a time that LB Newham & Sir Robin Wales justify inflicting an additional 46,000 residents to excessive noise levels on the basis of job creation, that never seem to appear. It seems that jobs are being lost due to the expansion of London City Airport. This building is situated right beside LCA's Runway and no private businesses wanted to move in due to the noise and pollution from the airport. Not an ideal place to live or work it seems and could explain why it remained empty for so many years.Here's an example of how the airport stops employment coming to the area.
"Newham Council is sacking over 600 of its own workers and one of the reasons is to pay for its new headquarters in the Royal Docks. Building 1000 is costing Newham Council £75 million to buy and a further £20 million to refurbish. The money for this white elephant is being found by making over 600 loyal employees redundant.
At the same time as cutting hundreds of jobs the Council intends to carry on spending £millions on lavishly paid consultants who contribute little or nothing to Council services. In the last 12 months over £16 million has been wasted this way and this figure is likely to rise in 2008/9.
Shocked trade union officials were given the news of mass redundancies at a meeting with the Council’s Acting Chief Executive, Chris Wood, on Friday afternoon, 28th March.
Irene Stacey, Branch Secretary of Newham UNISON said:
“I am appalled by the Council’s decision to sack over 600 workers. This will as come as devastating news to hundreds of loyal staff and their families. There can be no justification for this policy of mass redundancies. Newham Council is showing itself to be callous and incompetent – callous because it doesn’t care about livelihoods of hundreds of loyal and dedicated staff; incompetent because of its ill-conceived decision to purchase a building it doesn’t need and can’t afford.”
UNISON has no intention of letting the Council get away with its policy of mass sackings. We will be calling meetings of all the sections affected and an emergency branch meeting to thrash out plans to defend every job. Our Branch Secretary is writing to all the other trade unions in the Council calling for a united stand against the Council’s plans – including, if necessary, strike action."
For more information contact Newham UNISON on
020 8555 9351
