Oxfordshire youth workers
Youth workers in Oxfordshire struck on Tuesday 23 August against council plans to slash its youth services and threatens up to 80 jobs. The county council plans to reduce funding from £3.7 million to £1.4 million. It is already one of the country's lowest contributors to youth services.
The council plans to keep half of its 26 youth centres open as “early intervention centres”, and a further 9 may win a reprieve through “Big Society” funds. Mike Beal, chair of the Unite branch which organises the youth workers, said that workers who take jobs in the new “early intervention centres” will be “dealing with vulnerable people and their problems We're not against that. In fact, we do that already, but the whole point of the youth service is it is open access to everyone, and it won't be under the new set-up."
Strikers planned a series of protests throughout the day.
First TransPennine Express
Members of rail unions RMT and ASLEF working for First TransPennine Express (FTPE) will strike on August 24 and 26 after workers rejected bosses' offer of a 2.2% pay rise. ASLEF's strike ballot returned a 91% majority in favour. It organises 300 drivers at the company, while the RMT organises 400 workers across all-grades.
FTPE's latest accounts show a 13% increase in profits, a £42 million dividend for shareholders and a 5.8% pay rise for its boss, already earning nearly £500,000 per year. The company was previously claiming it could not afford a substantial pay increase for its employees as its franchise was about to run out, but it has now had its contract extended to 2015.
RMT leader Bob Crow said “Our members have made it quite clear that they expect a company that makes substantial profits out of their efforts to offer more than a real-terms pay cut.”
Northern Ireland Unison
Unison members in health and education services in Northern Ireland began balloting for strike action on 22 August. According to the union, budgets cuts are already leading to:
- severe job loss;
- uncovered vacancies and unpaid overtime;
- pay freezes;
- casualisation of work by the abuse of temporary contracts and agency working;
- compulsory redundancies;
- home care work being outsourced to the independent care sector on minimum wage;
- service closure leading to job loss;
- increased stress and health and safety risks.
Unison's Northern Ireland Regional Secretary Paula McKeown said “It has never been more necessary for UNISON members in health, social services and education to stand together to fight for our jobs and services and to force employers to listen.”
Canada & USA: Bombardier and Verizon
700 workers at a Bombardier plant in Ontario, Canada (the country where the company is based) took three days of strike action from 9 August in a dispute with management over pensions. After management presented an improved offer, 94% of workers voted to accept the deal and return to work.
Following the British government's decision to award the £3 billion Thameslink contract to Siemens rather than Bombardier, the Ontario strike should be used as an opportunity by Bombardier workers' unions in the UK to make links with Bombardier workers in other countries. The need for such links and their potential to undermine a nationalist response to the struggle is highlighted yet again by the RMT's latest press release, which poses the issues in terms of “UK jobs” and “British interests”.
In America, a two-week strike by workers at telecoms giant Verizon was called off by union leaderships without a new collective bargaining agreement in place. 45,000 workers had taken two weeks' of strike action in protest at a proposed agreement from management which included substantial cuts to wages, the replacement of regular raises with management-determined productivity measures,cuts to paid sick leave and attacks on pensions.
Union negotiators had said from the beginning of the dispute that the strike would be called off at the first sign of movement from management, rather than keeping workers out indefinitely until a new agreement was reached. The settlement does involve the indefinite continuation of the previous agreement (which formally ended on 6 August) while negotiations are underway to draw up a new one.
The strike was incredibly hard fought and included flying pickets from workers, which even included picketers chasing scab managers through the field and setting up mini-picket lines at individual telegraph poles or manholes. Bosses responded in kind, threatening to cut of workers' healthcare benefits if the strike continued. They also enlisted the help of the state against their workers, taking out court injunctions to impose strict legal restrictions on picketing. Unfortunately, the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (the unions organising at Verizon) have bowed before this legal manoeuvring and instructed their members to obey them to the letter. Verizon have even got the FBI on their side, with the Bureau launching an investigation into "terrorist" sabotage of Verizon's networks by its workers.
The dispute comes in the context of a growing nationwide attack on collective bargaining which includes the Wisconsin labour war; Verizon has consistently attempted to undermine union labour by contracting-out and outsourcing an increasing amount of work.
