Against victimisation

Defending victimised workers and trade unionists

Industrial news in brief

Members of the train drivers’ union Aslef on Southern began an overtime ban on 6 December, and are preparing to strike alongside RMT guards later in the month. The guards’ latest strikes began on 6 December and will continue until 8 December, with Aslef due to participate in further strikes on 13-14 and 16 December. RMT guards will strike again on 19-20 December and 31 December-2 January, and both guards and drivers will strike on 9-14 January. Southern bosses, who succeeded in having an earlier Aslef ballot declared illegal by the High Court, have again sought an injunction against the...

Industrial news in brief

On 8 November, the Dockworkers’ Union started industrial action, including a ban on overtime, at the Gothenburg terminal which handles 60% of Sweden’s container trade. It has also called for a blockade on traffic redirected from Gothenburg. Problems in Gothenburg have increased over the last five years since APM, the container-terminal offshoot of the giant Maersk group, took over, and especially since, according to the union, about a year and a half ago, the company adopted “an anti-union stance”, presumably in response to the continued stagnation and sharper competition in global container...

Industrial news in brief

Station staff on London Underground are balloting for strikes, and industrial action short of strikes, against job cuts. The ballot begins on 1 November and closes a fortnight later. Both the RMT and TSSA unions are balloting their members. London Underground’s “Fit for the Future” restructure programme on stations has seen nearly 1,000 jobs axed and thousands of workers forcibly regraded and displaced. Workers say that new rosters are unworkable, and recent incidents at North Greenwich and Canning Town stations have highlighted the risks of de-staffing. Unions are demanding a reversal of the...

Industrial news in brief

Workers at the Ritzy Picturehouse cinema in Brixton struck on Friday 7 October, and will strike again on Saturday 15 October. The Ritzy cinema was completely shut down by the strike, and films due to be shown as part of the London Film Festival moved to other venues. Workers picketed the Ritzy after they walked out at 1pm, they then protested outside the BFI South Bank cinema (the BFI gives large grants to Picturehouse cinemas and Picturehouses in London are part of the London Film Festival going on at the moment), before proceeding to Leicester Square to protest outside a London Film Festival...

Industrial news in brief

Rail workers on Southern Rail will strike for 14 days across three months, with strikes planned for 11-13 and 18-20 October, 3-5 and 22-23 November, and 6-8 December. The workers, who are members of the RMT union, are fighting to defend the safety-critical role of the guard. Southern, which is owned by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR, which also operates the Gatwick Express franchise), wants to de-skill the guard's role to make it non-safety-critical, meaning that only the driver would have responsibility for tasks such as opening and closing doors. The long-running dispute has become...

Industrial news in brief

In March, the University of Manchester announced plans to restructure its subsidiary company, UMC, making 46 redundancies in catering while moving the remaining staff on to “term-time only” contracts. This latter move would have meant cuts of about one third to their total pay. But now, as a result of solid negotiating by Unison, and agitation, occupations and disruption by students, management have backed down. There will be no compulsory redundancies, no loss of hours and no pay cuts. These victories in the fight against the university’s contemptuous treatment of its workers should embolden...

Industrial news in brief

UCU at the University of Nottingham is balloting for industrial action against threatened compulsory redundancies in the Faculty of Arts. The University that claims to be Britain's global university wants to reduce its offer in archaeology, and theology and religious studies, and close language courses including Dutch. 11.5 FTE posts are at risk. The student body is up in arms over the threat. They have organised several protests, a petition and a Facebook group: Resist Restructuring Nottingham. The proposed cuts come against a background of changes to the way students access student services...

Victory for blacklisted construction workers

Various large construction companies are to pay compensation to workers they illegally prevented from finding jobs. Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Laing O Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci Construction will pay out around £75 million to 771 of the people they victimised through putting confidential details into secret vetting documents. In 2009, a raid by the Information Commissioner's office uncovered a database of 3,123 workers and activists used by 44 companies to vet potential employees and exclude known trade unionists. Seven years later, these workers have finally...

Industrial news in brief

Train guards on Southern in the RMT union are set for further strikes after talks between RMT and Southern bosses collapsed. Workers are fighting the extension of “Driver Only Operation”, and resisting the de-skilling of the role of the guard, which the union says will have dire consequences for passenger service and safety on what are already some of Britain’s most overcrowded rail routes. Workers struck on 26 April, and further strikes are planned for 10-11 and 12-13 May. Southern management have conducted an intense campaign of bullying and intimidation against their staff, threatening to...

Industrial news in brief

On 21 March cleaning and catering workers employed by multinational corporation Aramark at the South London and Maudsley NHS mental health trust, which has sites across South London, struck for a £10 an hour minimum wage, full sick pay and proper unsocial hours payments. Colin Little, the GMB rep at the Ladywell Unit at Lewisham Hospital, which is part of SLaM, spoke to Solidarity : “We all work for Aramark. We’ve come out together to fight for £10 an hour, for fairer wages. We’re not getting fair wages or sick pay. These guys work very hard, all of us work very hard, as a team, supporting...

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