Living wage

Sheffield bar workers demand safe transport

Bar workers in Sheffield are getting organised. A local campaign aims to achieve paid transport home after the end of our shifts. Recently Sheffield Council passed policy that stipulates as a condition of new licences that employers must provide transport home for workers at the end of their shifts. Currently, workers in hospitality find ourselves paying up to two hours pay for taxis, or waking home at night across the city. Sheffield is the low pay capital of Britain, according to researchers from Sheffield Hallam and other universities. It is not right that workers face an additional penalty...

Demand a £15 minimum wage by 2024? Yes! What about now?

In the last week some prominent Labour left figures and left economists have called for a £15 per hour minimum wage. Last year’s Labour conference passed a motion calling for this (and for minimum wage-level sick pay). Keir Starmer ordered Shadow Employment Rights Secretary Andy McDonald to oppose it; as a result he resigned. The left buzzed; it seemed like there might be some fuss about the issue in the labour movement and some campaigning. Instead: virtual silence. Labour has continued to argue, not very much or very loudly, for £10ph, implying that this will also be its policy come an...

Churchill cleaners’ strike: spread the action!

From Off The Rails blog February 23 saw hundreds of cleaners employed by the contractor Churchill strike across contracts on Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern, Southeastern, Eurostar and HS1 to demand £15/hour and full sick pay. The strike is the biggest single strike of railway cleaners in history. Many of the cleaners earn just £8.91, the minimum wage (laughably referred to as the “National Living Wage” by the government). Picket lines were held at stations across the region, including major London terminals such as St. Pancras, before cleaners converged on Parliament Square for a lively...

Longest strike in NHS history

Striking security guards at Great Ormond Street Hospital in central London marked the 24th day of their planned 44-day strike, on Friday 25 February, with a rally at the hospital, which was addressed by strikers and supporters from throughout the labour movement, including John McDonnell MP. The strikers, who are employed by outsourced contractor Carlisle, are demanding parity with directly-employed NHS workers terms and conditions. Their strike is the longest strike in NHS history. The rally came after GOSH spent £40,000 to pursue a legal claim resulting in an injunction that prevented the...

Couriers' strike spreads to south

JustEat drivers and other food delivery couriers are striking across the UK against low pay. Up to late February, action had been in the north of England (since 6 December), but now one-day strikes have sprung up in the south of England. In Folkestone, Colchester, Aldershot and Farnborough there have been strikes by couriers working for JustEat, Deliveroo and UberEats. Longer-running action has been co-ordinated by the IWGB union across the north of England. At the time of writing drivers in Sheffield are in the 69th day of strike action; couriers in Middlesbrough, Chesterfield and Leicester...

How we occupied JustEat HQ to support the strikers

One of the activists who took part in the occupation at the JustEat offices in London this week, to support the strike by couriers in Sheffield and other northern towns, explains their solidarity action. Please donate to the strike fund here . For more see IWGB Couriers Sheffield's Twitter . For an interview with IWGB Couriers Sheffield chair Parirs Dixon, see here . The JustEat strike which started in Sheffield three weeks ago is hugely significant – it’s the longest running gig economy strike in UK history and is spreading to other cities. In Sheffield student activists have been very active...

PCS plans to move on pay and cost of living (John Moloney's column)

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of our union, PCS, on 9 December will discuss a proposal for a consultative ballot of the entire civil service membership for industrial action as part of a national campaign around the cost of living. Whilst the union has been running a campaign on this for some time, we now have to move things up and test the mood of members. There’s undoubtedly a huge amount of work to do but the ballot will give us a focus to our work. In addition to this, I will be arguing for parallel campaigns for our culture sector, Metropolitan Police, and privatised members. In...

Victory at Sage care home

Strikes by care workers at the Sage care home in north London have won significant pay increases. From 1 December, care workers, domestic, and maintenance staff will receive a pay increase to £10.85 an hour. This represents a minimum pay increase of 11%. All other staff will receive a pay rise of 5%. The dispute at the care home began in March 2020, and has seen workers, who are members of the United Voices of the World union (UVW) strike several times, most recently in October 2021. Trustees of the care home include property magnate Benzion Freshwater, who has a net worth of over £2 billion...

Couriers’ strike threat forces u-turn

In Sheffield, with the help of Workers’ Liberty activists and supporters, food couriers working for JustEat delivery partner Stuart have been organising in the IWGB union in two fights: over job security and pay. On Friday 22 October, the threat of strike action forced Stuart into a U-turn over a planned pay cut. In August, JustEat’s CEO Jitse Groen wrote to Sheffield MP Paul Blomfield to say that JustEat would move its delivery operation over from Stuart to Scoober in the first half of 2022. Where this has been done in other cities, the existing Stuart delivery fleet has not been transferred...

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