Unite

Bus drivers working for Abellio at Beddington, Battersea, Hayes, Walworth, Southall, Twickenham will strike for ten days running up to Christmas. The strikes on 22-25-26 November and 1-2-3-9-10-16-17 December follow an intensive organising campaign which resulted in ballot with turnouts of 90%, 85%, 68% and 58%, and yes votes from 97% to 100%. Two previous ballots this year on more restricted demands failed to reach the threshold. The strike aims to break a two-year pay deal that only delivered 2.1% this year. Abellio is one of the lowest payers in London, so the drivers’ union, Unite, is...

Unite members at London United’s Fulwell bus garage are being balloted for industrial action over the sacking of their shop steward, Radeck. Radeck was suspended and then sacked just for the crime of answering a simple question on a union WhatsApp group about who had gone into work on strike days. Management say that giving the names of the few who broke the strike he has committed an act of gross misconduct. Radeck has over 15 years of a clean disciplinary record as a driver, so this is an act of revenge against a recently elected and highly effective trade unionist. In the summer London...

Liverpool dockers, members of Unite, have won pay rises of from 14.3% to 18.5%, backdated to June 2022, by their five weeks of strikes. They voted to accept the offer from Peel Ports on Thursday 11 November. Without the offer, they would have been on strike again from 14 November.  The victory can be put down to determination and organisation. The dockers struck for two weeks at a time, rather than the one-day strikes used in other disputes. There were picket lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And decisions were taken by mass meetings on the picket line. Unite dockers in Southampton and...

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced on 9 November that 176 Trusts across the UK had passed the threshold in their strike ballots and voted for action. That’s 100% in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Wales missed the threshold in only one of its Trusts (by only nine votes!). The shortfall comes from England, where Trusts are much larger. This RCN result should encourage members and activists in the bigger health unions, Unison, GMB, and Unite, to push for big turnouts in their ballots. The Unison ballot closes on 25 November, GMB on 29th, and Unite on 30th for their first wave. The RCN...

Liverpool dockers held further strikes from October 24 to November 6, and will strike for two weeks again from 14 November unless an improved offer is made. The strike has remained solid. There is no word of movement from either side, meaning that Peel Ports continue to hope to ride out this dispute, whereas the workers and their union, Unite, remain confident that the costs of the dispute can build up enough pressure to win their pay demands. Dock workers in Hull and other UK ports say they are continuing to refuse to handle shipments diverted due to this strike, adding to mounting financial...

The National Education Union (NEU) is balloting its support staff members in state schools (whose pay is either determined or indirectly influenced by local government pay negotiations) for strikes over pay and increased funding for schools. Shamefully, Unison’s bureaucracy has reacted by declaring that it is suspending cooperation with the NEU, accusing it of breaching an agreement which prevents the NEU negotiating for support staff in state-funded schools. However, rank-and-file activists in Unison, GMB and Unite who want to see an effective fightback over pay in 2023 will welcome the NEU’s...

Local government members of the GMB union have voted by 67% to accept the local government pay offer in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (£1,925). Unison (the largest local government union) voted 63% to accept in September, and Unite (smaller in local government) 75% to reject. Unite’s calling for a reject vote made the difference. In the Local Government Joint Council the three recognised unions have a custom of going by majority vote and it appears that Unite has conceded. The three unions must start next year’s pay negotiations immediately with a bold claim that fights to win a £15 per...

For health workers in Scotland, a bit as with Scottish local government workers in September, the mere threat of action has led to the Scottish government increasing its initial offer of 5% to £2,205 flat rate per worker, an average of perhaps 7% across the workforce. That is slightly better than the Scottish local government offer accepted by the three main local government unions (Unison, GMB and Unite). Calling off the live strike ballot which was due to close only days later was still an expensive mistake by the Scotland Unison health committee. It weakens health workers’ hand in future...

One of the markers of the significance of the current strike wave is that it includes, alongside national strikes in nationwide industries such as the rail and post, a proliferation of local disputes. That indicates not only the general conditions of mounting inequality and worsening wages and conditions, but an increasing confidence of workers to fight back. In Aintree, near Liverpool, nearly 700 workers in the GMB union at the Jacob’s Bakery factory have held a rolling strike since 26 September, striking for 12 hours at a time, for a total of 14 strikes so far. They are fighting for an...

With a series of disaggregated ballots being conducted by a variety of health unions, we could end up with a complex picture of mandates for strike action across different Trusts and sectors. It could still be used to launch an effective campaign of strike action in defence of national pay, if co-ordinated. It is vital in this situation that the health unions communicate and plan together effectively. With the leaderships nationally and at branch level of all the health unions having more experience of competing, pitting union against union, than of acting in solidarity, members will need to...