Pay, hours, conditions

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St Mungo’s strike to start mid-May

Workers at homelessness charity St Mungo’s in London, Bristol, Brighton, Oxford, Bournemouth and Reading have voted to strike from 24 April to 21 May over pay. A last minute management offer of an additional 1.25% is being voted on by members, because Unite reps had promised to bring back any consolidated offer. Members look highly likely to vote down the offer. Over 300 members attended a union Zoom meeting with the vast majority for a strike. If the digital vote rejects the offer Unite will give notice of a strike starting in mid-May. The dispute goes back to 2021, when bosses imposed a rise...

Revive the strike wave!

The strike wave which started in June 2022 had been sagging in recent weeks. Even now (15 April), leaders of the CWU union in Royal Mail have announced a deal with Royal Mail, ominously giving no detail but visibly pushing for union members eventually to endorse it as a fait accompli. The vote by RCN members on 14 April to reject the rotten NHS pay deal, recommended by all the unions except Unite (no recommendation), has turned that round. Nurses' strikes (1 and 2 May, from 8pm 30 April) will now combine with teachers (27 April, 2 May) and civil service (28 April), in a new uptick. The road to...

The lessons about union officialdom

The strike wave is reviving. Why did it sag in early 2023? One big lesson is about the role of union officialdom. After almost 35 years of low strike levels, a strike wave started in June 2022, with workers striving to match wages to prices, especially of food and energy, rising much faster than at any time since the early 1990s. Unemployment was and is low, with bosses hiring anew for post-lockdown expansion, so workers have also sought to reverse the decline since 2008 in real median weekly wages, especially in public services. On the rail, on the Tube, and in Royal Mail, workers have also...

Amazon workers step up action

Amazon workers at Coventry’s BHX4 warehouse are striking again on 16-18 and 21-23 April, following strikes on 13-17 March, 2 March, and 27 February. The workers, currently paid £10.50, are demanding a £15/hour minimum wage. Since 31 March, the GMB union has been conducting consultative ballots for industrial action at warehouses in Mansfield, Coalville, Kegworth, Rugeley, and Rugby, and hopes to move to formal ballots in due course. Amazon worker and GMB union rep Darren Westwood spoke to us. We’re feeling very optimistic. People are looking forward to striking, we feel like we’re pushing...

Unison Health delegates protest

A fringe meeting on pay, organised by “Time for Real Change”, on the first day of this year’s Unison Health sector conference, attracted 40 delegates (17 April). It decided that we needed an ongoing network of health activists to continue organising on pay restoration. On 18 April the conference passed emergency motion 1 from the top table which noted the vote to accept the offer and which said the union will seek implementation. Speeches have been made against the Service Group Exec’s ballot recommendation to accept the offer, but we have been unable to get a vote on any wording about that...

NHS "reject" campaign discusses plans

The NHS pay consultation ballots of the biggest health unions, RCN and Unison, are due to close on Friday 14 April. The Vote Reject campaign has delivered tens of thousands of leaflets across the country, and is bringing together workers from all the health unions to organise against the offer. Places where the campaign has a good levels of activism expect a strong No vote. However, in some areas many members will be untouched by the debate, and, without a convincing argument about how to win a better deal, may well be tempted by the unconsolidated “bribe” payment for 2022-23. RCN members, who...

Strike wave: signs of revival

The resounding vote by teachers in England in the National Education Union to reject a poor pay offer, despite government insistence that the offer was “final”, shows a significant will to fight. Despite the challenges in many disputes, the strike wave continues and even expands on some fronts. Junior doctors in the British Medical Association and Hospital Consultants and Specialist Association are demonstrating a basic strategic good sense that the rest of the movement should emulate: when they got no concessions following their first strike, from 13-15 March, they followed up swiftly and...

Rail dispute: yes, more strikes are needed!

Possibly in response to disquiet on the RMT members’ Facebook group about the lack of union comms on the current talks with the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), and a feeling there that we’ve yet again been suckered into calling off strike action for no reason, on Thursday 6 April the union sent an email to members and issued a press release. The email laments the fact that the RDG’s Dispute Resolution Process document has failed to materialise, making it impossible for the union to scrutinise as part of the offer. It also laments the fact that RDG has to “seek authorisation on every offer it...

We need to intensify

The civil service is the only major part of the public sector where workers haven’t been made an offer as yet. Teachers, NHS workers, local government workers have all had offers, many of which were poor but at least negotiations have happened. We know that ministers are considering an offer but it is very frustrating that they not as yet agreed to make an offer. Therefore, we have to increase the pressure on them. There is another all-members strike planned on 28 April, and we’re continuing selective action in various departments. Those strikes remain solid, but it’s clear to me that we’ll...

Campaign for "no" vote in health

Consultation ballots on the derisory offer to NHS workers opened on 28 March 2023. The Vote Reject campaign has delivered tens of thousands of leaflets ( click here ) across the country, and is bringing together workers from all the health unions to organise against the offer. The campaign is starting to articulate ideas for an escalation of action alongside the BMA junior doctors if the offer is rejected. The petition for an Emergency General meeting of the RCN has been restarted, and emergency motions for Unison health conference (17-19 April) are circulating. It will be difficult to win a...

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