Engineering construction

Workers at the Ivy House pub in Nunhead (South London) have been on strike since the morning of 30 September in a dispute about four sudden, unexplained dismissals, zero hours contracts and union recognition. They want reinstatement or at least suspension with pay and a proper process for reviewing the cases; secure, fixed hours contracts; and recognition of their union, the BFAWU.

Service controllers on the Waterloo and City Line on London Underground (LU) have been fighting for regrading. They struck from 28-30 September. One of the activists spoke to Tubeworker.

What’s happening to us is part of a wider picture.

United Voices of the World (UVW) union continues its protests in support of sacked union members Barbara and Percy.

Barbara and Percy were sacked from Sotheby’s auction house, where they worked as porters and cleaners, after they helped organise a protest to demand sick pay and for trade union rights.

On Monday 7 September UVW organised a protest at a car auction Sotheby’s was holding in Battersea park.

Two of the four UVW activists originally sacked by Sotheby’s have got their jobs back, but Sotheby’s continues to victimise Percy and Barbara.

UCU members at seven London colleges struck today as Solidarity went to press (Tuesday 23 June) in disputes over job losses.

Strikes will happen at College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, South Thames College, College of North West London, Croydon College, Greenwhich Community College, Hackney Community College, and Lewisham Southwark College (LeSoCo).

Following a one-day strike at Lewisham and Southwark College on 4 June, union members report a different atmosphere in the college.

The dispute has now broken out of the world of committee meetings and into the classrooms and corridors, canteens and staff rooms. Everybody now has to have a position on the strike, everybody has to think about taking a side.

For many staff and students, this is a further political education and a first direct experience of trade union struggle.

Two hundred GMB members employed by ISS at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, South London have voted for strikes to end two-tier conditions in NHS.

The dispute is for the same pay rates, weekend enhancements and unsocial hours rates as the staff directly employed by the Trust.

The GMB members are employed as cleaners, security, ward hostesses, caterers, on the switchboard and as porters.

On 23 September GMB organised a protest outside the bondholders meeting of the PFI operator for the hospital.

Cinema workers at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton have announced 11 April as the date for the first strike in their dispute over pay.

Members of BECTU at the cinema have conducted a long-running campaign to win the London Living Wage of £8.80 an hour. The typical hourly rate at the Ritzy is currently £7.24.

Workers voted to strike by an 85% majority.

Sparks win contract fight

Electricians working at a Network Rail construction site in Three Bridges, Sussex won new contracts following a wildcat strike on 4 April.

Plumbers and heating and ventilation engineers in the Unite union have overwhelmingly rejected a below-inflation pay offer, with their union threatening to move to an industrial action ballot unless the offer is improved.

The Building and Engineering Services Association (BESA) is offering a two-year deal with a freeze in the first year and a 1.5 percent increase in the second year, despite what Unite calls their “healthy profit margins and order books”. Workers rejected the deal by a margin of nine to one.

The attempt by the UK’s major construction contractors to impose a new collective agreement for mechanical and electrical construction workers has collapsed after the remaining six companies followed industry leader Balfour Beatty Engineering Services in performing an embarrassing u-turn.

Electricians working for Balfour Beatty Engineering Services have voted by 81% to take strike action in their battle against their employer’s attempt to unilaterally withdraw from the Joint Industry Board (JIB), the body which oversees union-negotiated pay and conditions.