Defending jobs

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Birmingham to strike 23-24 April

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. Unison, T&G Unite, GMB, Amicus and UCATT made the call on 9 April. They will stage pickets at refuse depots, schools, libraries, offices and care homes on each morning before joining a rally in Victoria Square at noon on Thursday April 24. Many years back, local government employers and unions agreed a Single Status “framework” at national level, to put blue-collar and white-collar workers into a single pay structure. But each local authority...

Remploy strike against closures

In a shocking example of its free-market savagery, the Government is closing 28 of the 83 Remploy factories, which employ disabled workers to make work-wear products in a unionised workplace with union-agreed terms and conditions and rates of pay. Meanwhile, it is outsourcing more and more work, putting up “for sale” signs at factories not yet closed and using “modernisation” funds to push for voluntary redundancies at the factories that are remaining open. On 6 and 7 February, workers at the Remploy factories in Birkenhead and Aintree went on strike against the redundancies; on 13 and 14...

Stop Rolls-Royce closure on Merseyside!

Hundreds of Rolls-Royce workers and their supporters marched through Liverpool on 8 February to protest against the company’s plans to close its plant in Bootle and transfer the work to the US, with the loss of 200 jobs. The Bootle workers were joined by solidarity delegations from other Rolls Royce plants including Bristol and Derby. The plans for the closure come shortly after Rolls Royce announced £800 million in profits, up by 13% from £705 million in 2007, and promised its shareholders a 35% increase in pay outs. The protest in Liverpool was addressed by Tony Woodley - whose record of...

Shelter Staff Await Strike Ballot Result

On Thursday the 21st of February, we will find out if some 450 members of the TGWU/Unite have voted in favour of national strike action, an event which would be a first in Shelter's 41-year history. They are faced with a package of cuts which will result in all 800+ staff working two and a half extra hours per week (unpaid) and without the current incremental pay scale which they are currently entitled to (worth £2k-£3k on top of starting salaries). On top of this, scores of frontline advice and support staff are to be made redundant and "redeployed" into lower-paid jobs in a "new operating...

UNITE to ballot workers at Shelter

TGWU/Unite members in the homelessness charity Shelter have voted by an overwhelming 87% to reject a raft of proposed cuts to pay and conditions, in favour of a strike ballot. To summarise the worst of what the organisation's management are proposing: Immediate downgrading of one third of frontline advice posts by £3k Removal of pay increments currently worth around £2.5k over three years Extenstion of the working week from 35 hours to 37.5 hours Introduction of new, disastrous, working practices which would effectively create a two or three-tier workforce of housing advisers doing the same...

US Auto Workers strike, but concede

Last month, for the first time in 37 years the US United Auto Workers (UAW) union launched a two-day nationwide strike against General Motors. The strike involved 73,000 production workers. It was over a two-tier wage structure, plant closures, outsourcing, forced 10-hour work days, and various classification and work rule changes. The strike brought GM production to a halt. According the the US rank and file union magazine Labor Notes there was confusion over the union’s strategy for the strike. The settlement the union has obtained leaves a lot to be desired, including a wage freeze for...

NUJ -3,000 Jobs Cut

On Monday November 5 the National Union of Journalists are to hold a day of action — Stand Up for Journalism day — across the UK and Ireland, to highlight cuts in the media. Cuts in the media is accompanied by widespread deskilling. That undermines the ability of journalists to do proper research and serious reporting. The day of action comes as BBC staff face massive job losses — up to 3,000 which is thought to include the loss of six or seven hundred jobs in News. The NUJ BBC branch is opposed to compulsory redundancies, and has said it would instruct members not to take part in selection...

More Strikes at Freemantle Trust Care Homes

200 careworkers at the Fremantle Trust, which holds the contracts for care homes in Barnet, North London, took their fourth day of strike action on Thursday 20 September as part of an ongoing fight against drastic cuts in their pay and conditions. Protesting outside the company HQ, workers held up signs spelling out the words “Dismantle Fremantle” and “We will not be silenced”. The dispute started in April when the bosses announced that there would be a new regime of longer hours, slashed annual leave and sick pay, along with pay cuts of up to 30%. The Barnet Unison website (www.barnetunison...

Defend Karen Reissmann

Manchester mental health workers have held a second three day strike to protest against the victimisation of their UNISON steward, Karen Reissmann. Karen was suspended in June for supposedly bringing the health trust she works for into disrepute after leading a previous strike against cut jobs and making public plans to cut services. Workers have decided to take two day strike action again from Wednesday 26 September. Patients bussed as far away as Darlington returned to their usual hospitals following the second strike but it is unclear whether that means that management has accepted the...

Build Local Solidarity

At TUC conference motions were passed calling for coordinated action, and use was even found for the old slogan that “unity is strength”. But behind the scenes union leaders were singing a different tune... Unison’s Health group ballot on pay got a 2 to 1 vote for accepting a staged 2.5% deal. This followed efforts by full time officers to close down any campaign for a no vote. A majority of NHS workers in England will now get a rise of 1.9% this year, half of even the most conservative inflation figure. The setback was used to try and pressure Unison’s Local Government Executive to back down...

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