Strikes and lock-outs

Heathrow security wins new offer

By and large, the workers who have won inflation-busting pay rises in the 2022-3 wave of strikes are those who have taken sustained action. Security workers at Heathrow Airport (members of Unite) have struck over pay for 18 days since March. Now their union, Unite, has set 31 days over the summer (24 June to 27 August). The strike plan has produced an improved offer - 10% rise backdated to January 2023, a further 1.5% rise from October 2023, and a promise of an inflation-linked rise from January 2024. The union has called off the first two planned strike days, 24 and 25 June, and is balloting...

Amazon workers say: the fight continues!

Amazon workers have sent a message to the support group established to support their ongoing fight for improved wages and conditions, and for union recognition. A push for recognition has been scuppered by Amazon, with the collusion of the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the government body which oversees requests for union recognition, skewing the figures by suddenly creating thousands of new jobs. This pushes the GMB union's membership level back below the 50% required for statutory recognition, even though a reasonable approach to due process would take the workforce figures from when...

Issues in the RCN re-ballot

The RCN reballot will run from 23 May to 23 June. Everyone supporting a continuation of the fight on pay and to save the NHS, whatever union they are in, should do what they can to support the vote for strike. Members will need to be convinced that escalation is possible, especially with of co-ordinated action with the BMA and Unite. Unite has a continuing mandate and is balloting in further trusts including in the ambulance sector. We have to argue against an nurses-only strategy for the dispute. In the longer term a united scale of pay and terms and conditions across the NHS can serve us...

Pay: we can beat the Tories

May 12 and 13 will see workers employed by Train Operating Companies (TOCs) on the mainline railway return to industrial action after a lengthy pause. RMT members, who strike on the 13th, returned a huge majority for action, on a 70% turnout, in their latest re-ballot. Drivers’ union Aslef has also rejected the latest offer put to it by the Rail Delivery Group, the umbrella body representing the TOCs. Aslef drivers strike on the 12th. RMT’s ballot result shows there is still a strong will to fight amongst members; the union leadership must now act on those results by calling the sustained...

Two more Amazon sites to ballot

Workers at two more Amazon warehouse will launch formal ballots for strikes, hoping to join workers at the BHX4 facility in Coventry who have so far struck for 14 days in total in a dispute over pay and workplace conditions. The ballots at the facilities in Rugeley, Staffordshire, and Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, begin on 12 May and conclude on 9 June. Workers in the warehouses voted for action by 98% and 100% respectively in consultative ballots held during April. The GMB union has also submitted a formal application for union recognition at BHX4, where its membership has now exceeded the 50%...

Push forward after May Day weekend strikes

The return to strikes by nurses’ union RCN, from 8pm on 30 April until 2 May, is an important opportunity to revive and accelerate the pay fight in the NHS. Unite members in various NHS trusts, including several ambulance trusts, will also strike on 1 and 2 May. If GMB members in the NHS also reject the pay offer in their ballot closing 28 April (possible, despite the GMB leadership recommending acceptance), their members in ambulance trusts and elsewhere in the NHS could also strike, officially from mid-May, but sooner if GMB members refuse to cross other unions’ pickets. Although junior...

Support the junior doctors!

Junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) are discussing further strikes for “pay restoration”, after seven days of strikes in March and April. They will not strike alongside other NHS workers at the start of May, but their leaders have indicated a desire for coordinated action. The BMA calculates real-terms pay has fallen 26% since 2008 – one of the biggest cuts for any group of workers. It is calling for a real-terms pay rise this year and a clear timetable to restore pay through a 35% increase. The government has responded by offering another real-terms pay cut and refusing to...

Amazon workers step up action

Amazon workers at Coventry’s BHX4 warehouse are striking again on 16-18 and 21-23 April, following strikes on 13-17 March, 2 March, and 27 February. The workers, currently paid £10.50, are demanding a £15/hour minimum wage. Since 31 March, the GMB union has been conducting consultative ballots for industrial action at warehouses in Mansfield, Coalville, Kegworth, Rugeley, and Rugby, and hopes to move to formal ballots in due course. Amazon worker and GMB union rep Darren Westwood spoke to us. We’re feeling very optimistic. People are looking forward to striking, we feel like we’re pushing...

French strikes continue despite 49.3

On 6 April French workers staged another major day of strikes and protests against President Macron’s reform to increase the pension age in France. A further day of strikes is planned for 13 April. The 6 April action was called by union leaderships (the “Intersyndicale” committee of the general secretaries of eight confederations) after talks with Macron’s prime minister Élisabeth Borne broke down after just an hour. Numbers on last week’s protest were down according to the CGT, with 400,000 reported demonstrating in Paris, down from 450,000 a week earlier. But the strikes are continuing to...

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