Aviva job losses

Green Party anger at Aviva jobs cuts

This week Aviva announced another 1,100 job losses in the UK with 571 at its York offices, 15% of the York workforce. This huge wave of job losses is the latest in what has become regular occurrence at York with now over 1500 jobs cuts since 2006.

Green Party Trade Union Group North East spokesperson Andrew Collingwood stated 'There is absolutely no excuse for the continuing waves of jobs cuts. The dedicated staff at York have helped build Aviva and make it the success it is today with its annually increasing profits. Instead of praise and job security for their contributions they face the constant threat of redundancy, while Aviva continues to reward its shareholders and waste money on re branding and expensive celebrity advertising campaigns'.

Andy Chase, Green Parliamentary Candidate for York Central, said: "This is bad news for York's economy and terrible news for Aviva employees when the company is spending a large amount of money on advertising and re branding itself."

"Concerted government action is now needed to help people in those areas hit hardest by job losses. There is much work that can be done to create employment and stimulate the economy. As well as supporting local businesses directly, there are also many other useful tasks, such as getting the housing stock in better shape. The government now needs to get in touch with local authorities and find ways of making this happen."

Vote for Jerry Hicks

There were several reasons behind my decision to move from Amicus to UCU a couple of years ago. One of those reasons was my distaste for Amicus leadership who supported the arms industry, nuclear power and blocked the motion for a boycott of Coca Cola at the War on Want conference. Things have not changed in Unite, only recently Unite spoke out in favour of runway 3 at Heathrow.

It is therefore refreshing to see a candidate for General Secretary who speaks out against Heathrow expansion and nuclear power. Furthermore he is committed to only taking the salary of an average skilled worker, rather than the £100,000+ salary enjoyed by current General Secretary Derek Simpson.

The Green Party Trade Union Group have produced the following statement:

The Green Party Trade Union Group does not seek to instruct Amicus members how to vote in their internal ballot, but notes that Jerry Hicks HAS made statements on environmental policy that GPTU would support. GPTU therefore asks Amicus members to consider this when choosing how to vote.

Find out more about Jerry's campaign at http://jerryhicks.wordpress.com/