Pay, hours, conditions

PCS, the largest civil service union is in the middle of an industrial ballot on pay. which is running from June 18 to July 23.

Over 130,000 members of the union working for government departments and their agencies and responsible bodies have been balloted in the wake of the government's refusal to lift the cap on pay or even enter into negotiations with the unions.

This is the first national statutory ballot PCS have run since the new 50% turnout threshold for union ballots came into force.

Workers at TGI Fridays restaurants will strike for the fourth time on Friday 8 June.

Workers are now on strike at Covent Garden and Haymarket Piccadilly in London, Trafford Centre in Manchester, and Milton Keynes. Pickets were held at all sites during the last strike on Friday 1 June, and workers from the Trafford Centre restaurant met Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell at the Trade Union Congress’ (TUC) 150th birthday event at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester.

PCS members voted at their Annual Conference, taking place in Brighton from 22-24 May, to ballot members across the civil service for national strikes on pay.

An emergency motion from the union′s National Executive instructing the executive to ″organise a statutory ballot of members in the civil service and its related bodies on a programme of industrial action involving both all member and targeted action, to be held as soon as possible after Conference″ was overwhelmingly carried. And about time too.

Traffic wardens in Hackney struck for 48 hours from Monday 14 May in a dispute over pay.

The traffic wardens, employed by APOCA Parking, are organised by Unite, which has put in a claim for a cost of living pay increase of five percent. Workers are also fighting back against unfair implementation of sickness procedures, and unfair and potentially discriminatory implementation of the annual holiday allocation.

Warehouse and office workers at Tesco’s distribution centre in Dagenham, east London, struck for 24 hours from 17-18 May. 

The workers, who are members of the Usdaw union, are demanding a 15% pay increase. Tesco bosses have offered 3%. The workers’ claim would equate to a £1.39/hour increase. 

The logistics sector is strategically crucial to the capitalist economy, but unions, where they have members, have tended to be conservative. 

Over 100 cleaners, porters, receptionists and other outsourced workers at the University of London will strike on 6 June.

Workers organised by the IWGB union previously struck on 25-26 April in a campaign to be brought back in-house and have parity of terms and conditions with in-house workers. Outsourced workers currently receive inferior pensions, and less holiday, sick, maternity and paternity pay.

Protests in support of the strikes on 25 April were attended by hundreds of supporters, including Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

Picturehouse workers will be on strike again for the Sundance film festival happening at Picturehouse Central from 31 May to 3 June.

They will be striking during the opening night on Thursday 31 May, and again on Saturday 2 May. The strikes will hit several premières taking place at the festival. 

Workers at TGI Fridays restaurants in Covent Garden, London, and Milton Keynes struck on Friday 18 May in the first of a series of Friday strikes over a new tips policy which would see workers losing up to £250 a month.

Workers at TGI Fridays in the Trafford Centre, Manchester and Haymarket Piccadilly, London, have also now voted 100% in favour of strikes and are expected to join the strikes on Friday 25 May. Results of ballots at other restaurants in Enfield, and Gateshead Metro, Newcastle, are expected soon. All six sites may be on strike by Friday 1 June.

Workers at TGI Fridays restaurants in Milton Keynes and Covent Garden, London, will strike on Friday 18 May, and then every Friday over the summer, over tips and minimum wage abuses which lose workers £250 a month.

The strike will be the first time TGI Fridays workers have ever struck in the UK, after the Unite members voted by 100% in favour of strikes.

On May Day, a coalition of unions and campaigns, each organising precarious workers, came together to celebrate and take action.

Bringing together workers from BECTU, United Voices of the World (UVW), Independent Workers union of Great Britain (IWGB), the Bakers’ Union and Unite, as well as campaigners and activists from Women’s Strike, Labour Campaign for Free Movement, Workers’ Liberty, Another Europe is Possible, and Plan C, among others, the bloc coalesced around four demands: