Workers' Liberty

Workers in the housing charity Shelter are on strike again on 24-25 April against enforced cuts in pay and conditions. Previous strikes on 5 and 10 March forced Shelter bosses, who at first insisted that they would never negotiate, to put the cuts on hold and talk at ACAS. But their ACAS offer was only a one-off “compensation” payment.

Civil service by Workers’ Liberty PCS Members

A number of Groups (sectors) in PCS are striking on 24 April alongside the teachers and lecturers.

Our strike will make the news and will undoubtedly worry the powers that be; how much better if the whole of the PCS union was on strike.

The picket line at the Shelter office on Old St, London, was good. On the workers' third day of strike action - after a long pause, a lot of pressure from management, and a lot of foot-dragging or worse from full-time union officials - picket numbers were still buoyant, and the mood was defiant.

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.

Birmingham City Council workers will strike again on 23 and 24 April over the council’s plans to use “single status” negotiations to cut pay and jobs.

Several weeks overdue, the health service Pay Review Body finally made its recommendation to the government on 4 April — three days after the rise should have been implemented.

On 1 April the NUT National Executive received the results of the ballot for a one day strike to protest at the continuing cuts in teachers’ real pay. When the result was known there was no hesitation in agreeing to call the action on 24 April. Indeed the vote to proceed with a strike was unanimous.

The NUT National Executive met today to consider the results of our ballot for one day strike action on pay. 75.2% of members voted in favour of action on a turnout of 32%.

The health workers' section of the public service workers' union Unison has its conference in April. The Unison Health Service Group Exec met on 26 March, and a very strong minority opposed the top union officials' line that the union should accept a multi-year deal at whatever the official Pay Review Body proposes.

Driving examiners strike
 

Delegates will meet at the National Union of Teachers Conference in Manchester this month (21-24 March) in the middle of the union’s first national strike ballot for 22 years. Most activists are expecting a strong yes vote to endorse the union’s opposition to a 2008-10 pay deal which offers three further years of pay cuts.

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:

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.

This leaflet from Leeds NUT outlines the reasons why teachers are fighting for better pay.

The lecturers' union UCU plans to ballot its members in Further Education colleges to strike over pay alongside the National Union of Teachers on 24 April.

The civil service workers' union PCS has called off strikes set for 31 January.

Draft motions on pay, multi-year pay deals, and public sector alliance for PCS conference 2008.

Around 600 postalworkers and other trade unionists took part in a national demonstration called by the Communication Workers’ Union in Stoke on 19 January.

Birmingham city council has upped the ante in its battle with its staff over equal pay, by seeking to impose new contracts which mean drastic pay cuts thousands of workers and longer hours for thousands more.

In response to the impact of August 2007’s 12-hour strike, Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced plans for a strike-ban for prison officers on January 8. Tabled as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, the measure will be discussed in Parliament as Solidarity goes to press.

Civil service workers in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) will strike on 31 January over pay. They are likely to be joined by workers in HMRC (Revenue and Customs), striking over job losses, and workers in the Home Office (striking over pay).

A small group of postal workers met on Sunday 2 December to assess the result of the ballot which has now ended the CWU’s long-running dispute over pay and working practices, and discuss the way forward for militants who opposed the deal. The meeting was organised by the same people who led the “No” campaign under the name “CWU Rank and File”, though unsurprisingly it was considerably smaller than the launch meeting they organised at the start of the ballot.

Postal workers have voted 64%-36% to accept the deal negotiated by CWU leaders with Royal Mail bosses on 12 October. The deal gives a small pay rise conditional on a lot of "flexibility", but the vote in favour was predictable after the CWU leadership had called off all action for a month before putting the deal to the vote.

At the time of writing, 270 day-centre workers employed by Glasgow City Council are beginning their sixth week of all-out indefinite strike action.

The ballot on whether postal workers will accept the deal brokered between the Communication Workers’ Union and Royal Mail closes on 27 November.

Dave Warren is a member of the Postal Executive of the post and telecom union CWU. He opposed the deal with Royal Mail endorsed by a majority of the Executive on 22 October, and has been campaigning for a no vote in the ballot on the deal which runs between 9 and 27 November. He spoke to Solidarity.

The public service union Unison's ballot of its members in local government for action to improve their 2.475% pay offer produced a small majority for action, but the union's Local Government Executive, meeting on 29 October, decided by a large majority to accept the offer and not to call action.

On Tuesday 6 November 1,500 council workers demonstrated outside Birmingham town hall in protest at a ‘single status’ pay deal which will affect 40,000 staff.

PCS members have voted 67.6%, on a turnout of 33.6%, in favour of continuing the campaign of industrial action, but action is being frustrated by the union’s national leadership.

The "consultative ballot" called by the civil service union PCS about more action on pay and jobs has returned a 68% yes vote. The union Executive Committee met on 1 November but decided to call no further action for now.