Pay, hours, conditions

older

Stop Labour backtracking!

Media reports suggest the Labour leadership wants to weaken its commitment to ending the use of casualised contracts and bogus self-employment to deny workers basic rights. The details are vague, partly because the documents from the 22-23 July Labour Party National Policy Forum (NPF) have not been published. Angela Rayner has denied the party is watering down its New Deal for Working People , but has avoided commenting on the actual issues of controversy. One useful left-wing summary concludes: “We await confirmation that this is the trajectory — but the latest evidence is bleak”. The general...

Strikes multiplied tenfold

Official figures for June 2022 to May 2023 show 3.9 million striker-days, about ten times the average in the 2010s

Amazon strikes spread

Amazon workers' strikes over pay and conditions are due to spread, as workers at a fulfilment centre in Rugeley, Staffordshire, have voted for industrial action. The GMB balloted just over 100 workers, who voted by an 86% majority to strike. Although the union's membership represents a small minority of the workforce, union membership at the BHX4 site in Coventry exploded as an ongoing campaign of strikes began, and activists will be hoping for a similar effect at Rugeley. The GMB says its membership in the Coventry site is now over 1,000. The fight there has an additional dimension, as the...

Agitate for socialism!

The working-class movement is on an uphill journey. The latest official (Certification Officer) statistics on union membership, published 6 July, are thankfully out of date, but sobering. Between December 2019 and December 2020, union membership rose a bit. Between December 2020 and December 2021, it fell a bit, despite lockdowns and work-from-home beginning to fade. The figures depend on unions compiling returns at their year-ends (mostly December 2021, a few as late as September 2022) and sending them in. Even now, the result is incomplete because Unite the Union has done no report since...

Their economic crisis

The Tory government remains hardline on public sector pay. It now threatens to dismiss even the miserly recommendations of its own official Pay Review Bodies for 2023-4. The Tories say that squeezes on pay and NHS spending are necessary to slow inflation. But: • It now looks as if inflation will remain high (probably not as high as now) for longer than the Bank of England estimated when the Pay Review Bodies were pondering. Meagre pay rises will mean new real-wage cuts in 2023-4. • Profits were up in the early months of 2023, as spending power stashed during lockdowns flowed into markets. The...

Junior doctors keep up the fight

Junior doctors fighting over pay held three more days of well-supported strikes on 14-17 June, with lively picket lines and a march and rally of 1,000 in London. Among NHS workers fighting for a pay rise, junior doctors have so far waged the most determined campaign, both in terms of clarity of demands (they are clear they want a real-terms increase and a timetable for “pay restoration” to 2008 levels) and the number of strike days. But as a junior doctor centrally involved in the dispute explained in Solidarity 676 last week, the current level of action — three days a month, with more of the...

Debating the Royal Mail deal

Royal Mail workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are currently debating an agreement reached between their employer and their union leadership, which is due to be put to a vote in an all-members' referendum. Solidarity advocates a no vote in that referendum (see here for more). However, we also believe in open debate and accurately reporting on and reflecting the discussion amongst workers. To that end we publish this contribution by a postal worker and CWU rep, which gives a different view. Further comments and contributions are welcome. When the agreement the union reached with...

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