Strikes are spreading

Workers at offshore energy firm Orsted struck over pay from 23-24 September and 30 September-1 October. Although the workers are in RMT, which organises offshore energy workers, the company has done a sweetheart deal with the Prospect union.

Outsourced cleaners on Avanti West Coast returned to the picket line on 23 September, in their dispute for increased pay. Teachers at Calverton school in Newham, east London, struck over changes to terms and conditions on 20, 21, 27, 28 and 29 September, with further strikes planned through October and November.

Cleaners at University of the Arts London struck from 26-30 September, and cleaners at the Royal Opera House, members of CAIWU, struck on 30 September. Security guards at New Covent Garden market and at the HSBC building in Canary Wharf, both in Unite, struck from 25-27 September and 28-30 September respectively.

Workers on London’s Woolwich Ferry have voted to strike, as have CWU members working as cleaners and maintenance engineers for Royal Mail Property and Facilities, and outsourced security guards in the IWGB union at University College London.

The Fire Brigades Union is preparing to ballot its members for strikes, following a pay offer of just two percent.
Members of the Scottish teachers’ union EIS voted by a 94 percent majority to reject a five percent pay offer, with
91 percent indicating their willingness to strike, on a 78 percent turnout. The union will now move to a statutory strike ballot.

The Junior Doctors’ Committee of the British Medical Association, which organised strikes in 2016, says it will
begin a ballot of its members for industrial action “around 9 January”. The BMA has “made £2 million available from its reserves to help meet the financial requirements for ballot preparations and other steps towards industrial action by doctors”, and says “steps are also being taken […] to create a strike hardship fund.”