Unite

Liverpool dockers win on pay

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...

NHS unions move towards strikes

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 out again from 14 November

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...

Unison should back NEU efforts

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...

Council pay: start now for 2023

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...

Scottish health workers gain better offer

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...

Local strikes spread as national disputes expand and accelerate

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...

NHS: make links across unions

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...

Liverpool battle will reverberate

Dockers at Seaforth (Liverpool) struck again from Monday 24 October. The current strike will last till 7 November — taking the days of work stoppage up to five weeks. An agreement was reportedly close to being reached in the week starting 17 October until the employer, Peel Ports, reneged by once again tabling redundancies. The legacy of the 1995-98 dispute on the Liverpool docks is felt throughout the current battle: the communities that came together in struggle then are present on the pickets at the port and outside companies such as Atlantic Container Line — which is one of Peel’s biggest...

One-day, indefinite and other strikes

The current wave of strikes has seen the reappearance of a trade union tactic once standard, and stronger than series of one-day or few-day strikes: the indefinite strike. Three indefinite strikes have been called in the current wave so far — criminal barristers, Arriva bus drivers in garages in north and east London, and housing maintenance workers for Barnet council (strike only just started). The barristers’ strike lasted just over a month, and secured a 15 per cent increase. Unite called off the Arriva strike a week before it was due to take place, after the employer offered 10-11 percent...

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