UCATT

Full name	Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
Founded	1971
Members	127,433
Country	United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland
Affiliation	TUC, ICTU, STUC, BWI, CSEU, Labour Party[1]
Key people	Steven Murphy, general secretary John Thompson, president
Office location	London, England
Website	www.ucatt.org.uk

The Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) is a British and Irish trade union which represents, as of December 2009, 127,433 workers in construction and allied trades,^[2] an increase of nearly 17,000 since 2003.^[3]

UCATT was formed in 1971 following the merger of the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers (AUBTW), the Association of Building Technicians and the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and Decorators, which had itself been founded the previous year from a merger of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers (ASW) and the Amalgamated Society of Painters and Decorators (ASPD)

The merged union was initially known as the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, Painters and Builders, but changed its name later in the year. Its first General Secretary was Sir George Smith, formerly General Secretary of the ASW, who was directly elected by the membership. Its Executive at the time incorporated paid officials who had been selected by an electoral process within the industry.

National strike of 1972 [edit]

In 1972, shortly after its formation, UCATT along with the GMWU and TGWU, two sister unions involved in construction and civil engineering, was involved in a major national joint industrial dispute. For the first time in the building industry, workers all over the country went on strike, demanding a minimum wage of £30 a week, along with a campaign to abolish the 'Lump Labour Scheme', which institutionalised casual cash-paid daily labour without employment rights. The strike took the form of a 12-week stoppage which affected many major sites, effectively forcing employers to negotiate.

Unionised workers used flying pickets to seek support from workers on the lump. On 6 September 1972, UCATT and TGWU bussed members from North Wales and Chester to picket building sites in Shrewsbury. Despite confrontations with site management, the police made no arrests on the day.

Five months after the strike, at a time when some of the strikers' aims had been largely settled, a number of building workers were investigated for acts of sabotage and vandalism during the dispute. Some of these were subject to high profile police investigation, under pressure from major contractors and politicians anxious to suppress the emergence of organised labour in the building industry. 24 building workers were convicted and six jailed as a result of their picketing activities. The longest sentences were given to Ricky Tomlinson, a plasterer and TGWU strike leader, and Des Warren, a steel fixer and leading lay official of UCATT, who became known as the "Shrewsbury Two". At Shrewsbury Crown Court, they refused to testify against fellow strikers. Charges of affray were dropped, but they were found guilty of "conspiracy to intimidate" under the Conspiracy Act 1875, which had not been used for 98 years. Warren was sentenced to three years in prison, and Tomlinson to two.^[4][5][6]

The whole of the trade union movement saw common cause with the Shrewsbury strikers, and it was widely felt that the trial and prosecution had been a miscarriage of justice, based more upon industrial and political revenge from the Heath Government than sound principle.^[7]

In the intervening years, Des Warren developed serious health problems, which his supporters attribute to overdoses of medication administered whilst in solitary confinement. Tomlinson, who went on to become a successful entertainer, took the case to the TUC Annual Congress with others in 1975, with little result. In 2004, Des Warren died without the pardon that various activists and trade unionists had campaigned for ever since.^[8]

In 2012 Tomlinson and others sought to have the convictions overturned by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.^[7]

Recession and recovery [edit]

During the late 1980s, and early 1990s, UCATT suffered a long debilitating recession, with successive attacks from a hostile Conservative government, which culminated in the union having to go into a long period of management over serious financial deficits from falling membership rolls. UCATT having had tried for many years to sustain cash contributions from members collected on site in the age of increasing technology.

This period of serious decline was co incidental with strong rumours of a merger with various other unions, chief among them the TGWU, and gains being made by GMB.

Throughout the 1980s, a strong joint Sites Movement of regular UCATT, TGWU, GMB, AEEUW, members characterised the construction Unions' work on sites in Major Cities, many of whom had remained crowded, unsafe, and casualised places in need of true reform.

UCATT however, emerged under the new leadership of George Brumwell, its General Secretary in 1992.

George Brumwell, a strong, charismatic leader, put the lean-and-mean UCATT back to work, and by 2001, had largely affected a turn around in the union's fortunes, with a number of cost containing measures such as the closure of a number of local offices and strategic redundancies. This all but eliminated the deficits, and built a new more readily sustainable UCATT which was significantly smaller than before.

The union also found itself running a 'Safety Culture' campaign across the industry, while campaigning for a case for construction and regeneration, which became part of the strategy of the New Labour government following its election victory in 1997.

Following a rule-change in 1995, UCATT has a lay Executive Council. Its most recent General Secretary is Alan Ritchie, formerly the Scottish Regional Secretary was forced to stand down over voting irregularities, George Guy is the Acting General Secretary until the election re-run in October2011. It is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party, as well as to the Building and Wood Workers' International and the EFBWW, European Federation of Building and Wood Workers.

Today [edit]

In 2006, UCATT, T&G, and GMB, the successors to the joint unions of 1972 ran a seven day strike on the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5 in pursuit of £1.00 on bonus, and back pay. The employer was Laing O'Rourke the successor to John Laing Ltd, one of the big employers of 1972. After the dispute was resolved the strikers received 80% of their original aims and substantial back pay.^{[citation needed]}

As representative of the views of site workers, UCATT takes the unions' seat on the government/industry body, the Strategic Forum for Construction.

Alan Ritchie was forced to stand down as General Secretary in March 2011 due to an order by the Certification Officer. The 2009 election was to be treated as 'void and of no effect' and a new election to be run by the 29th July 2011. UCATT appealed the decision of the Certification Officer and lost postphoning the election until later that year. Michael Dooley claimed the election was unfair because less than 50% of UCATT's 130,000 members received ballot papers.^[9] Dooley is seeking to challenge the decision.^[10]

General Secretaries [edit]

1971: George Smith

1978: Les Wood

1985: Albert Williams

1992: George Brumwell

2004: Alan Ritchie

2012: Steven Murphy

Sources [edit]

• UCATT family tree

References [edit]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (January 2013)

External links [edit]

• The background to the National Builder's Strike 1972 and the trials of the 'Shrewsbury 24'
• Interview with a UCATT member in Liverpool's 'Nerve' magazine
• UCATT website

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