Pay, hours, conditions

The final day (2 May) of a planned strike by nurses’ union the RCN has been cancelled, after the government took the union to court to block the strike. The judge agreed with the government’s assertion that the RCN’s industrial action ballot mandate expired at 23:59 on 1 May, making the final day of the strike unlawful. The RCN held a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where protesters held placards including one reading “who takes their heroes to court?” RCN leader Pat Cullen said: “The full weight of government gave ministers this victory over nursing staff. It is the darkest day...

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...

Workers at homelessness charity St Mungo’s in London, Bristol, Brighton, Oxford, Bournemouth and Reading have voted to strike from 24 April to 21 May over pay. A last minute management offer of an additional 1.25% is being voted on by members, because Unite reps had promised to bring back any consolidated offer. Members look highly likely to vote down the offer. Over 300 members attended a union Zoom meeting with the vast majority for a strike. If the digital vote rejects the offer Unite will give notice of a strike starting in mid-May. The dispute goes back to 2021, when bosses imposed a rise...

The strike wave which started in June 2022 had been sagging in recent weeks. Even now (15 April), leaders of the CWU union in Royal Mail have announced a deal with Royal Mail, ominously giving no detail but visibly pushing for union members eventually to endorse it as a fait accompli. The vote by RCN members on 14 April to reject the rotten NHS pay deal, recommended by all the unions except Unite (no recommendation), has turned that round. Nurses' strikes (1 and 2 May, from 8pm 30 April) will now combine with teachers (27 April, 2 May) and civil service (28 April), in a new uptick. The road to...

The strike wave is reviving. Why did it sag in early 2023? One big lesson is about the role of union officialdom. After almost 35 years of low strike levels, a strike wave started in June 2022, with workers striving to match wages to prices, especially of food and energy, rising much faster than at any time since the early 1990s. Unemployment was and is low, with bosses hiring anew for post-lockdown expansion, so workers have also sought to reverse the decline since 2008 in real median weekly wages, especially in public services. On the rail, on the Tube, and in Royal Mail, workers have also...

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...

A fringe meeting on pay, organised by “Time for Real Change”, on the first day of this year’s Unison Health sector conference, attracted 40 delegates (17 April). It decided that we needed an ongoing network of health activists to continue organising on pay restoration. On 18 April the conference passed emergency motion 1 from the top table which noted the vote to accept the offer and which said the union will seek implementation. Speeches have been made against the Service Group Exec’s ballot recommendation to accept the offer, but we have been unable to get a vote on any wording about that...

The NHS pay consultation ballots of the biggest health unions, RCN and Unison, are due to close on Friday 14 April. The Vote Reject campaign has delivered tens of thousands of leaflets across the country, and is bringing together workers from all the health unions to organise against the offer. Places where the campaign has a good levels of activism expect a strong No vote. However, in some areas many members will be untouched by the debate, and, without a convincing argument about how to win a better deal, may well be tempted by the unconsolidated “bribe” payment for 2022-23. RCN members, who...

The resounding vote by teachers in England in the National Education Union to reject a poor pay offer, despite government insistence that the offer was “final”, shows a significant will to fight. Despite the challenges in many disputes, the strike wave continues and even expands on some fronts. Junior doctors in the British Medical Association and Hospital Consultants and Specialist Association are demonstrating a basic strategic good sense that the rest of the movement should emulate: when they got no concessions following their first strike, from 13-15 March, they followed up swiftly and...

Possibly in response to disquiet on the RMT members’ Facebook group about the lack of union comms on the current talks with the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), and a feeling there that we’ve yet again been suckered into calling off strike action for no reason, on Thursday 6 April the union sent an email to members and issued a press release. The email laments the fact that the RDG’s Dispute Resolution Process document has failed to materialise, making it impossible for the union to scrutinise as part of the offer. It also laments the fact that RDG has to “seek authorisation on every offer it...