Pay, hours, conditions

Two-thirds of people who found work in the past year have taken jobs for less than the living wage, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Overall 22% of workers earn less than the living wage. The foundation reports during the last decade only a fifth of low-paid workers managed to move to better paid jobs. As many people from working families are now in poverty as from workless ones. The Trussell Trust reports that record numbers are resorting to food banks. Almost 500,000 adults and children were given three days’ food in the first six months of the current financial year — it was 355...

Cleaners working for contractor Interserve at Waterloo station struck on 17-18 November after a manager claimed “we shouldn’t be employing black people.” The strikes follow earlier action on 10-11 November, and a further 24 hour strike has been called starting at 3pm on 21 November. The RMT union says bosses have refused to address the allegation through agreed procedures. The union also says Interserve has underpaid wages, as well as victimising, bullying and harassing staff. Cleaners at Waterloo are not the only ones facing these conditions, or fighting back. Across various contractors...

Local Government workers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland have voted to accept a pay offer which equates to no more than the 1% offer the same group of workers rejected in this year. The deal simultaneously ties workers into a 1% pay deal for 2015-16. 64% of Unison members voted to accept the deal, 36% to reject While there was significant opposition to the deal in the regions of North West and London, the leadership of Unison (by far the largest of the three unions) called off the strike action planned to coincide with the TUC week of action and NHS workers’ strikes in October, and...

Health unions will stage a further four hour strike on 24 November in their ongoing pay dispute. If we do not win a decent pay settlement and build a union movement capable of defending our already much degraded terms and conditions, then we will have helped speed on the end of the NHS as a free state-of-the art health service. Since 2010 the NHS has been starved of £20 billion. By 2020 the gap between funding and necessary expenditure will be around £50 billion. But the current strategy of the unions is risible. So far the campaign has involved a four hour strike, four days of not doing...

Cleaners working for Interserve at Waterloo station struck on 10-11 November after a manager claimed “we shouldn’t be employing black people.” The strikes will take place between 3pm on Monday and 3pm on Tuesday, and for a further 24 hours starting at 3pm on 21 November. The RMT union says bosses have refused to address the allegation through agreed procedures. The union also says Interserve has underpaid wages, as well as victimising, bullying and harassing staff. Cleaners at Waterloo are not the only ones facing these conditions, or fighting back. Across various contractors, cleaners...

Train drivers' union ASLEF has gone into dispute with the Northern Rail franchise and is to ballot its members, after rejecting a two-year pay offer of 2.7% this year (RPI inflation in April 2014) and 2.5% or RPI next year, whichever is greater. The company argues that this is a "good offer" "in the current climate". ASLEF points out that it leaves drivers at the company behind those at other train operating companies. In a clear attempt to intimidate, propaganda threatening to withhold back pay and not to settle before Christmas has been sent to drivers' home addresses by HR Director Adrian...

University lecturers are preparing to begin an assessment boycott in protest at attacks on pension provision. The action, due to start on 6 November, will mean no setting or marking of exams and coursework so long as employers refuse to make concessions. It affects sixty-nine universities, mainly the older “pre-92s”. The University of York has already threatened staff with 100% pay deductions if they participate in the action, effectively a lock-out. UCU has said that any such move will prompt strike action, and it remains to be seen whether management at York will go ahead. Other universities...

Firefighters in England completed a 96 hour national strike over pensions as Solidarity went to press (31 Oct-4 Nov). Firefighters have now taken more than 10 days of strikes in the increasingly bitter dispute over pensions. Reports from picket lines across England have shown solid levels of support from firefighters and widespread public sympathy. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) had expected movement from the government after a series of talks with Fire Minister Penny Mordaunt. The government three times delayed laying the regulations to give itself time for a new offer. No new proposals were...

On 8 October, outsourced workers – cleaners, caterers, switchboard workers, seamstresses, porters and others – employed by ISS at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, South London, struck for the same pay and conditions as directly employed workers. To find out more about the dispute, visit their page on the GMB Southern region website . To make a donation to their strike fund, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Messages of solidarity and requests for more info to nadine.houghton@gmb.org.uk The workers are in talks with management and will be deciding their next course of action soon...

On 18 October, around 100,000 people joined the TUC “Britain Needs a Pay Rise” march through central London. Pay has stagnated for workers over the past seven years, making this the longest period of falling real wages since records began. In this context, with the rich seeing their incomes ballooning at the expense of the working class, the slogan “Britain Needs a Pay Rise” has the potential to mobilise workers already in unions and connect with those outside of the organised labour movement. A lot of this potential was wound down in the immediate run-up to the march. The leaderships of...