Pay, hours, conditions

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Hookers against hardship

This article is based on campaign materials by Hookers Against Hardship. For more information on the campaign and ways to show support visit: decrimnow.org.uk/hookers-against-hardship • Donate to sex worker-led organisations which support sex workers in crisis: here . The cost of living crisis has hit everyone hard, and sex workers are in an especially precarious position. Many are experiencing a sharp fall in income as customers cancel appointments and workplaces close. Unlike most other workers, sex workers are denied basic labour protections, such as paid sick leave, maternity pay and...

Escalate, accelerate, win!

The mass strike on 15 March must be used as a springboard - not only for further, escalating strikes, but for renewed efforts by rank-and-file workers to take control of their own disputes, and make links with other strikers. Coordinated, or at least parallel, action across multiple sectors creates opportunities for workers to come together for joint picketing and rallies. Wherever possible, assemblies and discussion forums must be planned as well as marches and rallies. Without such forums, strikers can feel like foot soldiers waiting for further orders from above, rather than conscious...

NEU: forward to 15-16 March

The National Education Union (NEU) National Executive (NEC) met on 25 February to consider the progress of our strike campaign on pay and funding.

It's urgent to speed up and widen strikes

March 15 will see teachers, civil servants, Tube workers, and junior doctors, and possibly others, strike together. Some of those workers, including teachers and junior doctors, will also strike on 16 March, when they will be joined by workers on the national rail. 15 March is Budget day. It is an opportunity to press not only the demands of individual disputes, but a broader package of pro-working-class policies: rebuild the NHS, scrap anti-strike laws, increase benefits... Lively, well-supported picket lines and a strong presence in central London, with local strike rallies elsewhere, could...

Reject the offer, rebuild local government unions

On 23 February, council employers offered a flat rate award of £1,925, or 3.88% for those on higher wages, from April 2023, for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland The claim from the unions (Unison, GMB and Unite) was for RPI + 2% (interpreted as 12.7%), a £15 per hour minimum wage in two years, pus extra leave and other improved conditions. The value of council workers’ pay has fallen by 25% in real terms since 2010, and the lowest grades have now almost been caught up by the government’s legal minimum wage of £10.42 (from April 2023). With this backdrop, it is not surprising that council...

PCS new ballot from 20 March

The PCS union will reballot members over the ongoing dispute concerning pay, pensions, redundancy moneys and job security. Although I could not attend the National Executive that made that decision, I welcome the re-ballot. As in the original ballot, voting will be done on a disaggregated basis, with 186 separate ballots taking place, covering over 124,000 members. The current levy of members, which in essence is an increase in subs, will stay in place allowing the union to run selective action. The current dispute mandate runs out on 6 May, and so the new ballot will run from 20 March until 9...

Junior Doctors strengthen NHS fight!

The BMA junior doctors have announced strikes from 7am 13 March to 7am 16 March, following a 98% vote for strikes on a 77% turnout. The new potential for all the health unions to co-ordinate, including the BMA, must increase pressure on the government both on pay and on rescuing the NHS. Unions have called ambulance strikes on 6 and 20 March. Unison has called a strike in ambulance and other trusts on 8 March, and won additional mandates in trusts it reballoted. Christine McAnea, Unison’s General Secretary, has tweeted, “Talks alone won’t be enough to call off these [strikes]. We want to see...

To win, we need much less calm

On the evening of Friday 17 February, a small group of UCU officials, not all of whom are even elected by UCU members, decided to suspend university workers’ strikes due to begin on Tuesday 21 February. The suspension was justified on the basis of “progress” having been made in negotiations, such that what UCU general secretary Jo Grady called “a period of calm” was now warranted. In fact there seems to have been little “progress”, as we discuss elsewhere. Even if there had been more, the suspension poses a major democratic question that resonates beyond the UCU: who makes decisions about...

Letter: FBU - reject in the name of what?

The report on the FBU’s pay deal in Solidarity 663 had the whiff of toy-town syndicalism. Instead of interrogating the FBU’s strategy, it exhorts firefighters to strike for the sake of it. Solidarity ignores the specific industrial relations context. The FBU has UK-wide collective bargaining — the National Joint Council. It is under attack from Westminster, the inspectorate, chief fire officers and employers. The White Paper published last May is designed to weaken the FBU, while giving chiefs carte blanche. The Minimum Service Levels Bill may undermine firefighter strikes. Solidarity fails to...

John Moloney's column: Continue and escalate!

Our strikes continue to be solid. We can see the impact at workplace level through things like the closure of the British Museum. Although nothing substantive came out of our last national-level meeting with the Cabinet Office, it was noteworthy that, on the day of that meeting, there was a story in the Financial Times reporting that the government was considering altering the pay anniversary date to set it in January, which means that, whenever a pay deal is settled, our members would receive a greater amount of back pay. We have had no formal notification of that proposal, but it is...

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