GENERAL Electric is threatening to abandon a £40 million plan to upgrade its plant at Prestwick Airport as it battles with nearly 600 staff to prevent them from setting up a formal union presence at the site.

Managers at GE Caledonian, which services and repairs around 200 aircraft engines in Ayrshire each year, have been expressing doubts to workers about whether the extension will go ahead, according to insiders at the plant. It is expected to add at least 100 jobs to the site. Staff have also been warned that the plant’s two biggest customers – United Parcel Service and Federal Express – are unhappy about the drive for unionisation and might reconsider their servicing arrangements. These statements, which have been made in numerous one-to-one meetings and briefings to small groups of staff, are being interpreted as tactics designed to dissuade staff from pushing for collective bargaining powers rather than signs of commercial unease. The management are said to be strongly opposed to formal organisation at the plant despite the fact that GE Caledonian is the only major plant out of about half a dozen in the UK GE Aviation division where the union is not recognised. Amid concerns about changes to pension arrangements, the Sunday Herald understands that 60% of the circa 850 staff are members of Unite and 70% signed a petition in favour of union recognition. Unite last week submitted a formal application to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) for recognition, which is a formality when over half of a workforce are members unless the management can produce compelling evidence against.

Roz Foyer, the senior organiser at Unite in Scotland, said: “Some mangers have been briefing their teams that an extension planned for the site would no longer get built because of unionisation.

“The workers are facing a barrage of daily emails, managers taking them into rooms for chats, and lots of rumours about what will happen to the site if they unionise. Given that all the other sites have collective bargaining in place, the idea that Unite would prejudice the site is just ridiculous.”

It is the second time GE has fought with its Prestwick staff over union recognition, having won a previous battle 10 years earlier with the help of US labour relations specialist, Burke Group.

“At Prestwick we are paid very low basic salaries but high shift allowances, so we don’t see benefit in our pensions. Now that the pension terms are being cut, that’s brought it home to people,” he said.

“Where once having no union was seen as a refreshing change after they did so little to prevent factory closures in Ayrshire in the old days, these staff are older. The average age is 52 or 53. They are not chasing overtime as much. They’re more interested in their basic pay and their pensions.”

Another staffer added that the real reason why UPS and Fed Ex were unhappy about their servicing deals was that a shortage of materials was delaying the turnaround time for their aircraft.

If rumours were true that the extension were not to go ahead, it would be a huge blow to Prestwick. Scottish Enterprise put almost £6m of public money towards the project four-and-a-half years ago, which comprises the second part of an upgrade that is already seeing a test cell being installed to enable the workforce to handle engines for the likes of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The project has already been substantially delayed.

A GE spokesman said: “GE has a 30-year history of stable employment at our Caledonian site, positive relations in dealing directly with our employees and considerable and ongoing investment in the site.

“We respect individuals’ rights to membership and non-membership of unions but we are concerned that in this instance employees will not be given the chance to have a vote on this issue and recognition may be imposed on them.

“Many of our employees have requested the right for a vote and we believe that the most effective way to resolve this issue is to conduct a voluntary secret ballot.”