Workers' Liberty

A fortnight after the Grangemouth oil refinery was shut down by strike action, talks continue between refinery owners (INEOS) and UNITE.

The strike by the 1,200 union members was in defence of the refinery’s final salary pension scheme, inherited by INEOS from the refinery’s previous owners (BP).

The NUT and other union campaigns around pay raise a slogan for ‘Fair Pay’. What does this actually mean?

Unison local government branches have been holding an indicative ballot on pay over the last two weeks.

The new strike days, 24 and 25 April, are hugely important in the Shelter dispute. Much has been achieved so far:

For many years now, inequality has soared, but intimidation by employers and foot-dragging by sluggish trade-union leaders have pretty much kept a lid on wage battles.

One of Gordon Brown’s last acts as chancellor was to introduce a new “tax simplification” scheme.

After two days of strike action, bosses at Shelter, an organisation providing services to the homeless, have agreed to put "on hold" their plans to cut workers' pay and conditions.

Interview with Amaria Gacemi –
sandwich maker and CGT rep at the striking Grand Littoral Carrefour supermarket in Marseilles

Red: How did the strike start?

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On the 29 February members of the PCS union in the Department for Transport (DfT) took strike action over low and unequal pay, jobs and privatisation.

The strike had a great impact:

Recently there have been a number of strikes and protests in local government in response to settlements of Single Status Agreements.

On Wednesday 5 March 450 members of Unite union who work at Shelter struck for the first time in the housing charity’s 41 year history. A Shelter worker explains the background.

Before Christmas, Ken Livingstone promised to pay the “‘London Living Wage” of £7.20 an hour to Underground cleaners when he took over Metronet. Unsurprisingly, he has not delivered.

Lecturers’ strike on 24 April

The UCU has announced plans for strike action for Further Education lecturers to coincide with the action planned by the NUT on 24 April.

Strike on the 1st of February

For the first time on this scale, following a call from the major retail
sector union federations CGT, CFDT and FO, the big retail sector mobilised

A TUC investigation has found that the number of workers working unpaid overtime increased by over 100,000 in 2007, with the total topping the five million mark.

Shop workers have been on strike in Berlin (and other parts of Germany) — a number of supermarket chains, department stores, the biggest bookshop chain, and also H&M.

TGWU/Unite members in the homelessness charity Shelter have voted by an overwhelming 87% to reject a raft of proposed cuts to pay and conditions, in favour of a strike ballot.

Recent reports in the press about Ambulance Trusts sending single handed response cars to emergency calls instead of ambulances came as no surprise to those working in the service.

Tube cleaners working for contractors to Metronet are to receive substantial pay rises when Transport for London takes over the failed privateer’s contracts, marking a huge victory for the RMT on London Underground.

Long working hours are on the increase again in the UK, after a gradual ten-year decline in people working more than 48 hours a week, according to new TUC figures.

It is now one week since the end of the nine-day railworkers' strike in France, which sought to stop Sarkozy forcing rail employees to work an extra two and a half years before retirement. The leaders of the major unions were quick to finish off the action once negotiations were tabled, although the head of the CGT, Bernard Thibault, had never been an intransigent opponent of Sarkozy's pension "reforms". However, Sarkozy's attacks on pensions are an ongoing process, and the struggle is far from over.

34,000 blue-collar construction workers employed by “Arabtec” in the “United Arab Emirates” are said to have returned to work after a three-week strike (14 November).

Melbourne, Friday 26 October 2007
Yesterday the government and the Hospitals Industrial Association backed down and have agreed to meet nurse pay demands.

Victorian nurses have begun taking industrial action is support of their wage claim.

I have been on many picket lines in my time but until today they have all taken place in the real world. Today saw the first ever strike and picket to take place in virtual reality.

by Colin Foster

What is the government going to do with illegally striking prison officers? Send them all to jail?

Local government employers have upped their pay offer to trade unions in an attempt to stave off industrial action.

One for all and all for one

Will other public sector unions pull forward their disputes over Gordon Brown’s two per cent pay limit so that they hit the Government together with the postal workers?