Strikes and lock-outs

A Royal Mail worker and CWU rep spoke to Solidarity about their ongoing dispute. Royal Mail and the CWU have issued a joint statement, with a longer appendix. Royal Mail has paused its “executive action”, the unilateral imposition of its planned cuts and restructure, and the joint statement effectively devolves negotiation over these issues down to local level. It sets a 10 March deadline for local resolution, but this seems ridiculous to me – I can't see how this will happen. Given what Royal Mail has already imposed so far, in many larger workplaces you have well over 100 people displaced...

March 15 will see teachers, civil servants, Tube workers, and junior doctors, and possibly others, strike together. Some of those workers, including teachers and junior doctors, will also strike on 16 March, when they will be joined by workers on the national rail. 15 March is Budget day. It is an opportunity to press not only the demands of individual disputes, but a broader package of pro-working-class policies: rebuild the NHS, scrap anti-strike laws, increase benefits... Lively, well-supported picket lines and a strong presence in central London, with local strike rallies elsewhere, could...

Strikes From 3 July : Brighton university workers (UCU) strike against redundancies Every weekend until the end of the year: Social workers at Swindon Borough Council (GMB) strike From 28 October: Go North East bus drivers (Unite) on indefinite strike 1 and 7 November: Library workers, IT technicians, and others at Cambridge University (Unite) strike 1 November: School workers in local authority schools in Glasgow City, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire and Inverclyde (Unison) strike 1 November-15 December: Outsourced ISS workers at the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for...

The BMA junior doctors have announced strikes from 7am 13 March to 7am 16 March, following a 98% vote for strikes on a 77% turnout. The new potential for all the health unions to co-ordinate, including the BMA, must increase pressure on the government both on pay and on rescuing the NHS. Unions have called ambulance strikes on 6 and 20 March. Unison has called a strike in ambulance and other trusts on 8 March, and won additional mandates in trusts it reballoted. Christine McAnea, Unison’s General Secretary, has tweeted, “Talks alone won’t be enough to call off these [strikes]. We want to see...

“Move fast and break things” (Mark Zuckerberg) and “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” (Rahm Emmanuel) are today’s rules of combat for the ruling class. From their own angle, they’re right. In the class struggle, the side that is quickest on its feet, most agile, most energetic in mobilising and inspiring its supporters, is more likely to win. The Tories are set to lose the next election, and to have difficulty with their MPs even getting through pragmatic adjustments to their Northern Ireland Protocol. They are still setting a fast and determined pace. They want to get through as...

On the evening of Friday 17 February, a small group of UCU officials, not all of whom are even elected by UCU members, decided to suspend university workers’ strikes due to begin on Tuesday 21 February. The suspension was justified on the basis of “progress” having been made in negotiations, such that what UCU general secretary Jo Grady called “a period of calm” was now warranted. In fact there seems to have been little “progress”, as we discuss elsewhere. Even if there had been more, the suspension poses a major democratic question that resonates beyond the UCU: who makes decisions about...

Our strikes continue to be solid. We can see the impact at workplace level through things like the closure of the British Museum. Although nothing substantive came out of our last national-level meeting with the Cabinet Office, it was noteworthy that, on the day of that meeting, there was a story in the Financial Times reporting that the government was considering altering the pay anniversary date to set it in January, which means that, whenever a pay deal is settled, our members would receive a greater amount of back pay. We have had no formal notification of that proposal, but it is...

Seven thousand nurses in two major New York City hospitals struck in January for three days, and won significant improvements to their contracts. For many strikers the key issues related to unsafe workloads and low pay. The promised deal will provide nursing staff a 19% pay rise (spread over three years), and — in a bid to tackle chronic under-staffing of hospitals — the introduction of 170 new nursing jobs across the two sites and guaranteed patient staffing ratios. Their short, sharp action won the day, and is inspiring others. Earlier this month, 800 nurses nearby on Long Island voted 99%...

Coordinated strikes on 15-16 March, which coincides with Budget Day, can help galvanise and intensify the ongoing strike wave. Teachers in the National Education Union (NEU) will strike on both days; civil servants in PCS will strike on 15 March. It is likely that RMT members on London Underground will strike on 15 March, and on another day in the same week. Following RMT’s rejection of the latest offers from employers in disputes on the national rail, workers at Network Rail and mainline Train Operating Companies may join them. The University and College Union’s programme of strikes in...

The RCN looks likely to call a 48-hour strike on 1-3 March, with a reduction of derogations in A&E, intensive care, and cancer units. Unison is thought to be looking for unified strike action with other unions. Escalation and co-ordination are vital and supported by members on the picket lines. For the strikes to win a strategy of increasing action over a short period of time will be much more effective than a long haul of strike days here and there. It’s also important that striking members articulate their demands to maintain pressure on the union leaderships. The RCN demand of 5% above...