British Gas Fire

An Anonymous Worker, 9th February 2021

The worst thing about it is I loved this company. But now it just feels toxic.

I’ll give you a little background info. A few years ago, they attacked our pensions and, in return, promised us growth by hiring 400 apprentices. To this date, they have hired about 50.

They then announced they would attack our terms and conditions. Mid-pandemic, we have this added torment thrown upon us.

Working through the pandemic was awful. We’ve been told we work in a “Covid-safe” environment, but I lost my smell and taste in March. It’s only just recently come back. We have engineers scared for their lives as they have underlying health issues. “Covid-Safe”, Easy for them to say, sat in their homes in front of a computer. It’s honestly been hell.

The customers have been amazing throughout. Can’t do enough to stay socially distant during visits, it’s those I feel sorry for during this strike but the senior leadership team have brought us to this point. Not the engineers. We’ve done everything they ask over the years. One year they said no to a pay rise to “help the company”.

It’s been a decade of mismanagement. I joined the company in 2010 and it was booming. Share price £4+ and since then just got worse and worse. Customer service quality has been constantly dropping and they moved dispatch to India. Customers are sometimes unable to speak to a human and complain of hard to understand foreign employees on the phone.

The worst thing about it is I loved this company. It’s made me able to buy a nice house, car, holidays. But now it just feels toxic. I honestly feel we can come back from this but the way they’re holding this fire and rehire over us like a metaphorical gun to our heads is disgusting.

Our hope is for them to remove fire and rehire from the situation and get back negotiating with the union, the deal they came up with got an 86% rejection. We know we can’t continue the way we are but they can meet us halfway.

Quality Care Deserves Quality Pay

An Anonymous Worker, 9th February 2021

People are asking why we are striking? We have worked and worked in this pandemic, but when an employee, whether they’re a domestic, a cleaner, laundry staff, maintenance worker, or a carer voices their opinion, there is a barrier, there is a block, they are ignored; why is this happening? It is happening because our bosses look at us like we’re nothing. The work we do, we do it with pride, we do it with dignity and we do it to put bread on the table, but to Sage’s trustees this is not “decent work”, it is not “a real job.”

Well, we’ve got news for those trustees, we might not wear a suit and tie, but we look after the residents at Sage, we care for the elderly and the vulnerable in the local Jewish community, and we do it with compassion and pride. For us, this is a profession, and it is a dignified one. But unfortunately, striking has turned to be the only way we can make our voices heard.

We are simply asking for recognition for what we do and to be paid a living wage and to have rights that recognise the value of our work. We want the community in Golders Green, and society in general, to treat us like human beings. This is why we are asking for a living wage of £12 per hour and full pay sick pay and annual leave that matches what they have in the NHS. We should not be forced to come to work when sick and put our health, and the health of the residents in danger.

We want an end to the discrimination and the inequality, the last thing we wanted to do was go on strike, we simply want basic respect and dignity and to be able to get on with our job which is caring for the residents. And I hope that after this first round of strikes, Sage will see sense and do the right thing so we can all get back to work, but we will not stop until we are treated with respect.

The Battle of Barnoldswick

An Anonymous Worker, 9th February 2021

To embark on the unknown, whilst forsaking your wages, is a scary thought for many. So the real question is why do they do it?

Firstly, let’s be clear nobody ever relishes the prospect of taking industrial action, even less walking out the factory gates, your office, your school/university, your hospital or whatever your workplace happens to be. Let’s face it, most people work to live and to embark on the unknown, whilst forsaking your wages, is a scary thought for many. So the real question is why do they do it?

The answer is pretty simple, because they feel that they have no other options, they have no choice. Many of the people, who sadly are essentially forced to take industrial action each year, are not militant, they are not “loony lefties” as some in the right wing media like to portray them - they are decent ordinary working people fighting for fairness and equality. Fighting for their families, for their communities and in some cases their livelihood. Be it fair pay, decent terms and conditions or their job.

When people are backed into a corner the human instinct for survival kicks in. The stress of the situation triggers the fight response as opposed to the flight option. So why were we on strike?

The workers at Rolls Royce Barnoldswick went on strike following the announcement by the company that it intended to offshore the majority of work that was done at the site to Singapore, to a plant that the workers help set up and went and trained the workforce a decade ago, after receiving assurances that in helping the company this would not be to their detriment and would never be at the expense of their jobs. Whilst on strike they were dealt a further blow with another announcement that the company was going to outsource more work to a subsidiary factory in Spain. They simply had nothing to lose.

However, I am pleased to say that after 9 weeks on strike in the midst of winter, in a cold part of Lancashire we have been able to suspend the action having reached agreement with the company which will now be put to the members in the next few days, this will hopefully provide a secure long-term future for the site.

My Kingdom for a Fair Pay Rise

An Anonymous Worker, 9th February 2021

I just want to start off with why its absolutely necessary to strike during the lock down because on a day to day basis security staff at the Royal Berkshire Hospital are always left in the dark and a lot of the time silenced.

I have noticed that when the managers want something done we are expected to do it no questions asked but when we want something the managers are nowhere to be seen. Or, when we voice our concerns they brush them away and turn a blind eye. For example, at the beginning of the Covid pandemic we were expected to go into highrisk Covid areas. A lot of us weren’t happy about this due to the fact that we don’t get sick pay if we’re ill whereas everyone else on site does. When we challenged this and we refused to go into those areas we were threatened by them [management] saying, “well you might as well look for other jobs then.” Of course everyone got scared and did as they were told.

A lot of us had to steal PPE because they wouldn’t supply us with it. The wages are just ridiculous, I sometimes think to myself, is this job even worth it? With all the abuse and the s**t pay why should I put 110% into my work when Kingdom don’t make any effort to help us?

The list of problems can go on and on but the only way to stop these problems is to strike and get our voices heard. It is the right time to strike during the pandemic because people complain asking where’s security? Staff are asking how they can come back without security? It creates problems and the more problems the more it shows them what we go through every day and how much they actually need us. All we want is to be paid fairly and to be heard.

Unite The Union members employed as Security staff by Kingdom Security at the Royal Berkshire are currently on strike demanding fair pay. They have asked not to be named.

Don’t Cut IT

Christian Høgsbjerg, 9th February 2021

University of Brighton UCU are striking back against a wave of ‘restructuring’ and compulsory redundancies underway in IT services at the University. We took five days of action in December 2020 – the first strike undertaken by UCU members nationally since the pandemic – and we are now striking for five days at the start of the second semester from 8 to 12 February. The fact the local management at the University of Brighton are proceeding with trying to cut IT service jobs of all things in the middle of pandemic when we are rightly mostly teaching online signals that they have a plan to try to drive through further redundancies at the University. If we can defeat this attack, we could force management to rethink making further attacks in the near future. We are fighting to save every job at the University of Brighton - no “critical worker” should be forced out of a job at a time of pandemic - and we are fighting for the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all.

The wider economic crisis resulting from the government’s disastrous handling of the pandemic is also now forcing other university and college managements onto the offensive against education workers. There are compulsory redundancies of academic staff at other institutions of higher education either being made or in the pipeline at a whole range of institutions including Goldsmiths, Leicester, Liverpool and Southampton Solent. However university managements are now also facing renewed levels of resistance from education workers fighting to put people before profits – and our fightback is taking place alongside rent strikes by students, who won a victory at Manchester. Rent strikes are now being organised elsewhere including here at Brighton.

Our first wave of strike action was strengthened by the solidarity we received from students and other workers at Brighton University, other UCU members and branches up and down the country, as well as the wider trade union movement locally and nationally. We have received thousands of pounds in donations for our hardship fund for strikers. We held a virtual joint rally on our picket line with strikers from Unite at Rolls-Royce in Barnoldswick back in December, and their recent victory was an inspiration for everyone. A victorious strike at the University of Brighton against our management’s attempt to exert their power to hire and fire at will would give confidence to all those in the education sector fighting back - staff and students - as well as the wider trade union movement in Britain.

It Was Never My Intention To Go On Strike

Magaly Quesada, 19th February 2021

My name is Magaly Quesada, I work as a cleaner at La Retraite Roman Catholic School for Girls. My husband Roberto also works there. I came to the UK from Cuba as a political asylum seeker 13 years ago and I’ve worked at La Retraite for nearly 10 years, but despite having worked there for so long, I don’t receive sick pay.

Not being paid sick pay makes me feel inferior. I don’t understand why a worker who works full-time has this right but one who works part-time does not. I believe this is discrimination and no one has been able to give me a satisfactory reason for why this is okay. I believe that in the eyes of God we are all equal and should be treated equally.

It was never my intention to go on strike, but I believe that our demands are fair and that anyone with a little empathy should be able to understand our predicament. La Retraite has left us with no choice but to strike, in order to make our voices heard we must strike, and although we are afraid, we won’t back down.

Stop the Bullying

Jean Evanston, 19th February 2021

The NEU are in dispute over bullying at the college that they describe as institutionalised. The latest example of this is the victimisation of a trade union representative at the college.

He is being investigated under the college investigation policy for gross misconduct. The alleged offence took place in June and he was only informed in October. The union believes the investigation to be flawed, biased, vexatious and setting out to prove guilt. The NEU representative had previously raised concerns about bullying email chains.

He had also raised a concern about racism and discriminatory behaviour. He was also criticised for attending and speaking at a meeting run by the NEU and for distributing a questionnaire on workload and stress based on a Health and Safety Executive questionnaire.

The members of Shrewsbury Colleges Group NEU have voted strongly in favour (95%) of strike action in support of their representative in a formal ballot. Strike action is planned for Wednesday 24th February and then further dates in March if the college do not remove the threat from the NEU representative.

CWUandProud

Davie Bowman, 23rd Feb 2021

This is a pivotal moment for CWU members employed as Repayment Project Engineers (RPE’s). The grade of the role they carry out is being attacked and moved into a managerial structure where performance-related pay and bonus incentives rule the day. For the vast majority it would also mean worse terms and conditions including hours of work, annual leave and sick pay arrangements. They fundamentally believe that this move compromises the integrity of the role and the service to the customer by driving inappropriate behaviours linked to revenue generation.

In reality this is in many ways a selfless dispute as at the core of the 170 members minds is the future for their many colleagues who may aspire to carry out this role in the years to come. Ensuring that the role remains as a team member grade and is not sullied by the potential conflicts of interest that would be driven by the change. They have driven the dispute from the start making clear to the leadership the direction and policy that should be pursued. They may be spread from one end of the country to the other but they are tight-knit, determined and willing to fight. A statutory ballot result that delivered a 94% turnout with 86% voting yes for strike action must tell the story all on its own.

But they are battling a multinational company that `recognises the strength of feeling and passion but believes that our members are wrong’. They need your support in the days and weeks ahead as the 170 of them take part in the initial days of strike action. Every text message, tweet, Facebook share or any other personal or social media support you can give would be really welcomed by our members. They agreed at the very start that if they stuck together, fought together they could win together. With all your support that is an objective you can help them meet.

Not Very Good Lord

An Anonymous Worker, 23rd Feb 2021

The referencing department of Goodlord has always been treated like an unwelcome necessity to the business. The company employs upwards of two hundred people, with almost half of these being in the referencing department.

When we were first employed we were told the department functioned as a loss leader. The product was cheaper than our competitors and was a gateway to other Goodlord products. We have now been told that this model is no longer feasible. Goodlord’s solution to the issue of profitability is by cutting the wages of its workers in the department by 30%. The rental sector has not seen the same effects that other industries have due to the pandemic, these pay cuts stem purely from Goodlord’s own mismanagement of their finances.

These pay cuts were sold as a wonderful opportunity. The department were all on temporary or fixed-term contracts and were being offered permanent ones. Except the hours had been cut, as had the sick leave, maternity cover, pension contributions and most importantly, the pay. We had been hired for a London-based role, to now be told the new contracts were remote only and therefore did not need to meet the London Living Wage. As we would be changing contract type we were expected to apply for our own jobs. We were informed, just like any other job, if the terms of the new contract didn’t suit us, then we shouldn’t apply. But of course we are in a pandemic and the majority of us couldn’t take the risk of not accepting the new contracts.

We joined a union to help us negotiate better terms for our new contracts so we can afford to pay our rents. Goodlord chose to initially ignore the union, then not take the negotiations seriously and finally to try and discredit those in the department who had decided to unionise. Because of these actions we feel our only recourse is to strike.

The lowest-paid employees of Goodlord should not have to pay for the mistakes of the highest-paid.

Trouble on the Buses

Colin Hayden, 1st March 2021

Drivers at Go North West’s Queen’s Road Bus Depot are on all-out strike from Sunday after Unite members there voted 83% in favour of strike action against the company’s decision to fire and rehire them on new contracts that would reduce sick pay and wages.

Go North West are set to bring in scab labour via coach contractors once the strike gets underway next week to break the strike. The wider movement must continue to provide support where possible to help striking workers win!

When the all-out strike action begins on Sunday 28 February Unite will be mounting strictly socially distanced, Covid-secure picket lines at the company’s Queens Road depot (Cheetham Hill, Manchester M8 8UT).

Pay up Mitie

By Anonymous Unison members, 9th March 2021

We have worked on the frontline as porters, cleaners, switchboard and catering staff at Cumberland Infirmary during this pandemic. We have put ourselves at risk to serve patients meals, clean wards - keeping them safe from infection and do the jobs which allow nurses and doctors to deliver vital care.

We have frequently worked weekends and night shifts - spending time away from our families - as we often have to working in an NHS hospital. Our colleagues who are employed by the National Health Service receive enhancement payments for working these unsocial hours.

This extra money was agreed over a decade ago as part of the NHS Agenda for Change pay deal. It includes enhanced rates - such as time-and-a-half and double time - for working at the weekends or through the night.

We have discovered that our employer Mitie has failed to pay us enhancements for unsocial hours for over ten years. We are thousands of pounds out of pocket compared to our colleagues who do the same jobs within the NHS. We are ONE NHS - why should we be paid less than colleagues doing exactly the same jobs?

Our employer Mitie has repeatedly claimed that it has never received funding to pay us unsocial hours payments. But North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust (NCIC) claim that they handed over a “substantial sum” to Health Management Carlisle - the investment firm which owns the hospital - many years ago.

Worryingly, Health Management Carlisle has denied ever receiving any payments from the Trust relating to unsocial hours payments. We don’t know who has the money, but we do know that we have been short-changed for over ten years.

This would be a bitter pill to swallow at any time but we are even more upset to learn of our underpayment as we are giving everything to keep people safe during this pandemic. Where is our money Mitie?

Nurses Leading the Fight for Safety

An Anonymous Worker, 10th March 2021

Nearly 800 Workers at a private for-profit hospital in the city of Worcester, the second most populous in the US state of Massachusetts, launched an open-ended strike at the start of the morning shift on Monday 8th March. The health-workers, members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), which organises among registered nurses and other health professionals, walked out after MNA representatives had failed to reach agreement with St Vincent’s Hospital management over a range of key issues, most crucially staffing ratios. Nurses have had to deal with five and occasionally more patients during a shift and the MNA has long argued for a maximum of four per shift.

St Vincent’s is part of Tenet Healthcare, a corporation based in Dallas, Texas and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In the final quarter of 2020, the company’s profits reached $414 million, while total revenue the previous year topped $18 billion.

The action is the largest strike in the Massachusetts healthcare sector since a one-day walkout in July 2017 by some 1,200 MNA members at the Tufts (University) Medical Center in Boston’s Chinatown district. The current strike marks only the second large-scale action at St Vincent’s in more than 20 years. In 2001 nursing staff struck for 49 days in a dispute, which eventually secured the union’s first collective bargaining agreement at the Worcester hospital.

Against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic, which has hit Massachusetts especially hard (more than 16,000 deaths in a population of just under 6.9 million), nurses themselves have lodged over 600 complaints about inadequate staffing jeopardising standards of patient care and safety. Having voted overwhelmingly to strike in early February over the question of staffing, scores of nurses, backed by members of a Teamsters local, defied the lingering cold of a New England winter to picket the hospital. In response, hospital management have recruited agency staff to break the strike at a cost of around $5.4 million for the first week.

The MNA’s communications director, David Schildmeier, describes Worcester as “a union-friendly city” and the nurses have received support from leading Democratic Party politicians including the region’s Congressional representative Jim McGovern and the state’s two US senators, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren with Markey joining a protest organised by the MNA outside the hospital last month.

Hands Off Moulsecoomb: The Sequel

Calvin Cummiskey, NEU Rep at Moulsecoomb Primary School, 23rd March 2021

On Wednesday 24th March, I will be standing on a limited picket line, outside our marvellous Moulsecoomb Primary School. To be honest, feeling a little shell-shocked, confused and battered as to how this metaphoric movie managed to turn into such a protest film.

The original film was about an amazing school that constantly overcame challenges, whilst catering to a very vulnerable and impoverished local community. The onslaught of budget cuts due to reduced class sizes led to an Ofsted “Inadequate” and the academies sniffed us out.

The prequel movie, tells a brave David and Goliath tale, where the Moulsecoomb community refused to yield to big business suits that arrogantly attempted to ignore local opinion. Three academy trusts were dissuaded due to: strikes, marches, public meetings and an incredible social media campaign. A magnificent (yet slightly embarrassing) finale, for the last super-head who wrote an unprofessionally childish article to the papers of his decision to retreat, rather than inform the government and local authority.

Now, we face an impossible sequel. What an appalling, disgusting, cynical and cruel attack, to restart the process of acadamisation as we return after lockdown. We should be focussed on the emotional well-being of our communities at this point in the pandemic. Let us be quite clear – all the parents, the school staff, every school and college in Brighton and Hove, the local council, our MP’s, reject their requests.

We have worked throughout the lockdown and this is how we are treated. I grade Gavin Williamson “inadequate” and look at this process with the derision it deserves. One of the Ofsted inspectors that rated our school “inadequate” actually works for Pioneer Academy that now tries to take us over.

Unfortunately this is not a movie, nor a box-set, it is really happening, at a local community school near you.

Livability or Liability? Staff Strike Over New Contract

An Anonymous Worker, 8th April 2021

Victoria school teachers, including myself, have taken 3 days of strike action at our special school in Poole, owned and run by Livability. We have had our sickness and maternity conditions massively eroded in an attempt to bring the whole of Livability under one contract. That is around 1700 employees, including care staff, cleaners, teachers, physiotherapists, and other professionals under one contract.

It is claimed that this is an attempt to save money. However, when pressed Livability have stated that teachers do not cost them very much in sickness, as very few have time off and we do not use cover teachers, due to the nature of the school - a special needs school, catering for students with a wide range of abilities. Livability continues to insist this contract is suitable for teachers, even though it is not the same as the nationally agreed ‘burgundy book’ conditions.

Under threat of dismissal, teachers at Victoria Education Centre had little choice but to sign new contracts at the end of the last term.

We love Victoria school and we love the students we work with, so it is vital that we future-proof the school and the standards for our students and staff. The new contract would not be attractive to many teachers and we believe this will make it hard to recruit and retain experienced staff.

Strike action will continue at the school after the Easter holidays unless Livability are prepared to join in with discussions with the NEU and NASUWT about our teaching contracts and are willing to bring them in line with or closer to the burgundy book conditions.

There are viable solutions to resolving our dispute and the employer now needs to enter into meaningful negotiations.

The Height of Betrayal: The Thurrock Bin Strike

An Anonymous Worker, 7th May 2021

The reason for this vote was the council’s plan to bring in a series of drastic contractual changes that would leave these workers between £1,000 and £4,000 per year worse off. Existing terms and conditions around bank holiday pay, overtime, and vehicle checks allowance are to be scrapped in a process the council calls “modernisation”, a corporate phrase deployed to mask the reality of a race to the bottom.

Alongside refuse workers, domestic care workers (represented by the GMB union) are also seeing similar cuts to their remuneration. To add insult to injury, while the lower-paid key workers are suffering life-changing attacks on their livelihood, the senior council staff devising and implementing these cuts are seeing no real change to their working conditions or pay.

At one stage, Thurrock had the highest infection rates for Covid-19 in the UK, and numerous refuse and care workers contracted the virus – some becoming seriously ill. Despite the rhetoric locally and nationally about our key workers being supported, the council brass who spent the past year working safely from home were conspiring to rob them at the earliest opportunity.

As workers began to hear about this plan, needless to say they were incensed. One remarked to me that it was “the height of betrayal,” and many felt that their hard work over the past year was flung back in their faces by council mandarins who hadn’t even bothered to inform them in person.

Instead, Thurrock Council is running a campaign of disinformation. Union officials were prohibited from visiting the depot (not because of Covid regulations but because of “incendiary language” being used at meetings), workers were given leaflets accusing the union of lying and maintaining no pay cuts were planned, and most farcical of all, Unite was accused of “doctoring” the original cuts proposal that was provided by the council themselves.

Due to the overwhelming public support for these workers and the acknowledgement of the difficult job they do, the council won’t honestly state in public that they are leaving them thousands of pounds worse off. It is currently mired in its own scandal over a series of highly controversial speculation deals and it’s clear that the last thing the council want is the suggestion that they are passing these costs onto those who deliver vital services in the borough.

Virtual Strike Ends in Agreement

An Anonymous Worker, 8th May 2021

On Thursday 6th March, following a campaign that included five days of national strike action at FE colleges across Scotland, EIS-FELA and Colleges Scotland (the Employers’ representative body) formally ratified an agreement bringing an end to the national dispute over the replacement of lecturers with instructor/assessor type roles.

Although instructor/assessor type roles have existed in the Further Education sector for some time, in more recent years they have evolved in some colleges and replaced lecturers in the delivery of learning. The way this has taken place varies between different colleges; with some replacing lecturer roles following those posts being vacated, or through voluntary severance, and in one instance, at Forth Valley College, through offering over twenty-seven lecturers redundancy or an instructor/assessor type role.

With lockdown restrictions still remaining in place, and much of the FE workforce working at home, EIS-FELA members up and down the country engaged a large scale ‘virtual’ strike campaign, taking to social media and utilising video conferencing to build a vibrant and effective campaign of strike action.

With physical picketing limited by Covid-19 safety restrictions, “virtual pickets” were organised across college branches using video conferencing, allowing for large numbers of branch members to show their support for the strike, solidarity with each other and receive updates from branch and national EIS-FELA officials. As the campaign went on, branches joined together in combined and regional pickets to continue to evidence their collective strength and adaptability to a challenging context.

Weekly online rallies and union meetings were held via Facebook live, with EIS-FELA members attending in their hundreds, in increasing numbers, to hear from their national negotiators, EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan, colleagues from the wider trade union movement and other supporters of the campaign.

The EIS-FELA membership also maintained a strong presence on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, ensuring that their message was heard loud and clear by both their employers and the wider public: that colleges need lecturers and every FE student in Scotland deserves to be taught by a lecturer.

With strike action ongoing and the strength of the membership very clear, EIS-FELA negotiators continued to attempt to find an acceptable resolution to the dispute. Over several challenging NJNC meetings, deadlock remained and again EIS-FELA was pushed into another statutory ballot - this time on Action Short of Strike (ASOS) to be combined with ongoing strike action.

With the very real prospect of FE students across Scotland not gaining their results, after an already extremely challenging academic year, progress towards a resolution finally began in late April. Following a number of meetings and lengthy discussion, another agreement was struck on 23rd April and two of the three planned strike days the following week were cancelled, in an act of good faith by EIS-FELA, for ratification of the agreement.

Both the EIS-FELA national executive and the Employers’ Association unanimously ratified the agreement, which received formal sign-off at NJNC on 6th May.

There can be no doubt that the strong, creative and resolute industrial action undertaken by the EIS-FELA membership across the country resulted in the outcome achieved at NJNC through negotiation. The actions of EIS-FELA members, in the most challenging of contexts, directly strengthened the hand of the national negotiators that secured the agreement. In the unity of the EIS-FELA membership, came the strength that was required to bring an end to this dispute.

We’d Rather Be Teaching!

An Anonymous Worker, 9th May 2021

Beal High School is the largest secondary school in England. It is run by an academy trust that treats educators as costs whilst claiming to have “compassion”.

Unlike local authority schools, Beal High School’s Sickness Policy treats sickness absence as a capability or a disciplinary issue. Instead of compassion, staff who are ill are treated punitively and fear being fired from their jobs. Victims of abuse, chronic pain and even pregnant women have been subjected to the capability procedure for daring to be off sick.

Kevin Courtney, Joint-General Secretary of the National Education Union described the school and its policy as “unique and never seen anywhere else”. No other school uses a sickness policy that branches off into capability and disciplinary procedures.

Beal High School also has a two-tier workforce: since 2016, new members of staff have had their sick-pay entitlement slashed and are on significantly worse working conditions. As a result, recruitment and retention will be impacted negatively in the long-term.

Teachers and support staff never take industrial action lightly, and it is only ever done as a last resort. However, for three months after the issues were raised by the union, the school management dragged its feet, refusing to engage in a meaningful way. This approach has backfired on the school, angering the parents who are now forming a group to support the educators.

It’s not exactly clear why a school that wants to remain “Outstanding” in an OFSTED inspection would behave in a way that eventually drives a large number of its staff to walk out in protest. This can only rationally be interpreted as signs of hubris from a management team that had become used to not seeing its decisions challenged, having failed to meet with the school union reps since 2019.

In Beal High School educators are valued less than in other schools of the London Borough of Redbridge. If the issues remain unresolved, Beal High School will have high staff turnover as it will be an undesirable workplace for educators. In the long term, this will have a negative impact on students in one of the most densely populated areas in the UK. Educators’ working conditions are our children’s learning conditions: we need to protect both!

A Brush With Fire and Rehire

An Anonymous Worker, 15th June 2021

Engineers at Brush Electrical Machine have committed to the company throughout their tenure ranging from 2 years service to over 50 years.

They have worked through the pandemic as key workers and given continued support to the business and its customers.

They have worked away from family and even been told to travel to different countries during pandemic, unvaccinated and with little contingency in place, resulting in some engineers contracting Covid and passing it to their infant children.

Brush’s stance during the pandemic has been driven by a want to save money. Not a need to save money due to sustainability. There had been no evidence given thus far instead a comprehensive massacre of terms and conditions worse on every part from basic salary, pension contributions, overtime, holidays and offshore conditions. Resulting in an annual loss of £10,000 to £15,000 per engineer.

During this time the company have repaid furlough payments to the government (they cannot pay dividends and bonuses if the company has accepted furlough), given out pay rises to all but the service engineers including themselves, along with bonuses.

This behaviour should be made illegal as, without any evidence or morality the company - or ANY company - has the ability to force these conditions upon us all. We are fighting to stop it but in all likelihood it could be you next.

Striking for the Future of the Tube

Dan Randall, 15th June 2021

I’m a Customer Service Assistant, a frontline station worker, on London Underground, and a rep for the RMT union. The RMT’s entire London Underground membership struck on 1 and 3 March, followed by a station staff strike on 6 June, as part of a campaign to defend staffing levels and terms and conditions, including pension arrangements. All Tube workers in RMT will strike again on 21 June, alongside RMT comrades working for Network Rail and 13 mainline Train Operating Companies, who have their own dispute over pay, jobs, and conditions, who are also striking on 23 and 25 June. Unite members on TfL will also be joining us on strike on 21 June.

It’s the first national rail strike since 1994 (although that only involved signallers, whereas this strike will see workers in all functions and grades take action), and the first time Tube workers and rail workers have struck together since 1989. Around 60% of the RMT’s national membership will be on strike on 21 June. There’s a palpable sense of excitement amongst many workmates, obviously including union activists but also beyond them, at the prospect of being part of a historic strike which, as I write, continues to dominate public discourse.

As transport workers, the impact of us withdrawing our labour is extremely clear. When we stop working, London’s Tube system stops running. It’s a spectacular reminder that workers’ labour makes society move, in our case in a very direct and literal sense. In March, the Evening Standard reported that our strikes “cost” the London economy £50m per day. In other words, every Tube worker contributes to the generation of vast wealth every day – just by turning up to work. Going on strike allows us to think about our work in a broader context, not merely as something we do to pay the bills, but as a social process.

The background to our dispute is a funding crisis at Transport for London (TfL). From 2015, the Tories incrementally ran down the government grant previously paid to TfL, abolishing it entirely in 2018. That left TfL heavily reliant on fare revenue, which represented 75% of its income, as opposed to around 38% for the New York subway. When the pandemic hit, and fare revenue collapsed, so did TfL’s finances. The government has funded it with a series of short-term bailouts, which were all conditional on making “savings” – i.e., cuts – and returning to being “self-financing” by 2023. TfL is looking to make those “savings” by measures such as cutting 600 frontline positions from stations, and potentially reforming our pension scheme to reduce employer overheads.

The company assures us cuts will be achieved by deleting vacancies and displacing staff rather than making existing workers redundant. But any worker who’s worked in an under-staffed workplace with unfilled positions knows it means everyone else’s workload goes up, with all that brings in terms of increased fatigue and stress. Deleting vacant positions makes that situation permanent. Potential displacements could also wreck work/life balance. From a passengers’ point of view, a Tube with 600 fewer frontline station staff on it will simply be a less accessible, less safe place to travel.

The constant barrage of anti-strike demagogy shrieked from the front pages of the Evening Standard and the Metro, distributed for free in our own workplaces, can grate, but it comes with the territory. Passengers who take the time to inform themselves about the real reasons for the dispute, and look past right-wing media spin about “Tube drivers’ pay” (our dispute isn’t about pay, and our 6 June strike involved only station staff, not drivers!) are invariably supportive.

As a union rep, I have all sorts of exchanges and discussions with workmates in the run up to a strike. New starters want to know if their probation will be affected if they join the strike; I assure them they have the same legal rights as everyone else, and let them know that I went on strike in my first week of training (yes, really!), and I’m still on the job, nearly 10 years later. Inevitably some people worry about the financial impact of prolonged action, and we discuss ways to mitigate that, for example using the RMT’s Credit Union, or accessing branch hardship funds if necessary.

Some workmates say things like, “of course I’ll be striking.. but will it achieve anything?” The old adage that if we fight, we might not win, but if we don’t fight, we’ll definitely lose is always a useful response. But I can also point to relatively recent experiences of winning concessions from the company, such as our 2017 strike on stations which forced LU to reinstate 325 jobs they’d cut under a previous restructure.

The announcement of a strike alongside national rail also raises the stakes in a positive way. As well as an amplified industrial impact, the coordinated strike poses political questions about how public transport is organised and funded. Anti-union laws prevent us from striking directly to demand the reinstatement of adequate, no-strings-attached funding to TfL, but our union has rightly been clear that, ultimately, any meaningful settlement on TfL requires a resolution the funding question.

TfL’s latest funding bailout from the government expires on 24 June, meaning TfL Commissioner Andy Byford and Mayor Sadiq Khan will be re-entering negotiations with Grant Shapps and the Department for Transport. If Byford and Khan reaffirm their commitment to cuts, they will not only be selling out Tube workers, but the passengers who use the service. Our strike on 21 June will make it clear to all parties around that table that we, the workers whose labour makes the system run, won’t accept our jobs and conditions, and therefore the quality of service we provide to London, being cut as a condition of further funding.

The government needs to adequately fund the Tube, or face further strikes.

Outsourced Workers in the Heart of Whitehall Fight Back

Kate, 20th July 2021

PCS members employed by the facilities management contractor ISS at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have yet again voted overwhelmingly for strike action. Many readers will recall the historic strikes these workers led in 2019, not only undertaking the first ever indefinite strike action of outsourced workers in Whitehall, but crucially winning improved pay and terms and conditions.

Despite the civil service, and ISS’s, performative statements that “Black Lives Matter” outsourced workers have not seen much evidence of that on the ground. As we have sadly seen across the economy, Black and migrant workers have borne the brunt of the negative effects of the pandemic, including devastating higher death rates. Our members have been battling to get the basic Covid-19 safety measures, despite the PM’s statements that cleaners and security guards are the heroes of the Covid crisis.

PCS Union does think they are heroes and heroes deserve to be safe, to be paid properly, to have job security and to not be treated as second-class workers. That is why members have voted for strike action and are fighting to breakdown the two-tier workforce that plagues Whitehall and be rightfully valued for their outstanding work throughout the pandemic.

The Government has called for a jobs-first recovery and a high-wage economy. However, they are refusing to instruct their contractor, ISS, to adhere to this. Our members are fighting back and saying loud and clear: BLACK LIVES MATTER.

I’m Proud to be Part of this Dispute: The Birmingham Bin Strikes

Anonymous Birmingham Bin Striker, 25th April 2025

This dispute was born last year after employees who were performing the WRCO role received statutory notices advising them of a 45-day consultation period proposing the deletion of this particular role. To give it its full title, the Waste, Recycling, Collection Officer was introduced in 2018 to bring a previous dispute to a close after High Court intervention. This involved one of the two loaders taking on extra responsibilities, particularly in regards to safety at the back of the vehicle but also in conjunction with the driver to ensure the smooth running of the service - reporting missed collections, any access issues and promoting recycling being a few examples.

Whilst the original letter suggested the removal of this role was only a proposal, it quickly became clear there was no consultation to be had, just b.c.c fulfilling their statutory legal obligations. After the role was officially removed, a range of options were made available for affected employees including redundancy, driver training, a move without loss of pay to street cleaning or 6-months pay protection. Whilst on paper these offered a fair range of options, I will attempt to explain why this is not the case.

Redundancy, maybe attractive if you’re nearing retirement age but daunting after 30 years of service then trying to find something else. Driver training, great if you enjoy driving and would like to enhance your career prospects but many of the affected employees don’t even possess a car licence. A move to another dept namely street cleaning with no loss of pay, this is the most contentious as, though the council claim in their words “nobody needs to lose a penny”, this supposedly equivalent role has still to go through the same evaluation process every job within b.c.c is currently undertaking, with a high likelihood this role will also be downgraded with the same subsequent pay cut.

Shortly after asking employees to explore these options, drivers were paid a visit by senior management and made assurances which were then put in writing to suggest they were not part of these proposals and therefore had no concerns regarding losing any pay, so should not be supporting any industrial action. What b.c.c seems not to understand is frontline staff are a band of brothers and sisters who fight for all our terms and conditions, whether we are directly affected or otherwise. As it turns out b.c.c management acted very disingenuously towards drivers as they face the same evaluation process and potential downgrades, so promises were not made in good faith, it was basically impossible to predict the outcome of this independent process.

After weighing up our limited options a ballot was announced and, despite the depot manager who ironically was our former convenor telling everyone in earshot it would fail, it passed comfortably. Industrial action began in January for one day a week, but with a large number of agency staff already employed it meant any work not done was picked up and our impact was limited.

We then moved to a 3 day a week strike and whilst this had more of an impact, b.c.c seemed happy enough to deploy agency staff on the weekend at enhanced pay rates. Finally from March we voted for an all-out strike. This in conjunction with help from Unite’s organisers to facilitate within the law a slow walk protest in front of the wagons soon saw rubbish pile high in the streets and chaotic scenes in our city, whilst more police appeared on a previously peaceful picket line. Despite being no doubt under tremendous political pressure the chief constable confirmed we were acting within the law. After witnessing the effect we were having b.c.c announced emergency measures which included the police threatening a section 14 implementation which could result in arrest if breached.

I’m proud to be a part of this dispute as I think every employee should defend their hard-earned terms and conditions. I would like to place on record mine and my colleague’s immense gratitude for the fantastic support we’ve received throughout the dispute, ranging from Unite supporting us financially, members of the public bringing food and drink to the picket line and various organisations doing inspiring work raising funds and offering unwavering support. It’s been a humbling experience during a difficult time. As a sidenote, despite the difficult circumstances we have also been running a barbecue and raised money to fund a bleed kit for a local charity, made donations of Easter eggs to a children’s charity and a local food bank. It’s been nice to give something back to the communities we serve.

B.c.c in my view has behaved disgracefully throughout this dispute, seeming more concerned with waging a propaganda war discrediting long serving employees with genuine financial future concerns and spending millions of pounds on a scab workforce rather than engaging in meaningful negotiations.

They’ve blatantly lied throughout the media regards recruitment of new agency staff (unlawful during a dispute), options available to affected employees, the number of those affected by these changes and also stating on local television that compulsory redundancy notices had been issued - to this day not one single compulsory redundancy notice has been issued.

Whatever the outcome of this dispute I will walk away with my head held high and my morals intact.

Unions Stand Together in Livv Housing Strikes

From a Unison Rep, Livv Housing Group, 16th May 2025

Since October 2024, workers at Livv Housing Group have been on continuous strike following years of below-inflation pay rises and management’s outright refusal to negotiate. Despite the soaring cost of living and the company’s financial stability, staff have seen their wages effectively fall year after year.

Rather than address these legitimate concerns, the employer has resorted to union-busting tactics in an attempt to break the strike. Agency workers have been brought in to undermine industrial action, and pay increases were selectively offered to non-union staff — a clear attempt to divide the workforce and punish union members for standing together.

Despite this, UNISON and Unite members have stood shoulder to shoulder throughout the dispute, showing unwavering solidarity. Joint rallies and marches have brought workers, families, and communities together, and an active leverage team continues to apply pressure on the company at every level.

This united front has drawn strong support from both unions’ leadership. General Secretaries Sharon Graham (Unite) and Christina McAnea (UNISON) have backed the strike, sending a clear message that this dispute is about more than just a pay offer — it’s about dignity, fairness, and the right to organise.

In a major show of continued strength, workers secured a renewed six-month strike mandate in early 2025, with a resounding 96% voting to continue industrial action.

This strike is not just about pay. It’s about respect, the right to collective bargaining, and putting an end to exploitative tactics. These workers are standing up not just for themselves, but for all workers facing similar challenges across the housing sector.

Strike Success Saves Manchester Mental Health Service

Dr John Mulligan, Unite the Union Rep for the Manchester Early Intervention in Psychosis Service, 5th June 2025

In significant part thanks to Strike Map, many of you will already know that our small NHS Early Intervention in Psychosis Service has been on strike for the past nine months.

Far too many NHS teams will have first-hand experience of the staffing crisis that seems to be accepted or ignored across much of the NHS, to the detriment of the population we try and often fail to effectively serve.

The ratio of frontline staff to patients within each service or ward or community, is not something that gets much air time when politicians wax lyrical about their latest and greatest successes within the NHS.

England is a country where people with mental health problems die on average 15-20 years younger and where 43,800 people die unnecessarily each year from preventable physical health difficulties.

A decade of non-investment and seeing the life-limiting impact that staffing shortages cause our patients, left our Unison and Unite members feeling powerless. Worse, it left us feeling complicit in what most people in Manchester experience as appalling community mental health services.

When it was made clear to our members that our four years of effort to avert strike action and secure the additional staff we need was going nowhere slowly, we voted to strike.

Last week our small service, supported by our unions and community here in Manchester and beyond, won a dramatic victory. We secured £1 million of recurrent funding which will allow us to employ 21 more staff within the service.

With that investment, we will help many people to get back on track and move on from needing mental health services quickly. Sadly, we work alongside patients at higher risk of suicide or victimisation, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that this investment will save lives.

If improving life chances, alleviating distress or reducing suicide doesn’t help you connect to our success then how about the finances? This investment will result in a net saving for the NHS and wider economy of £72.5 million over the next 10 years.

We wanted 54 staff, which was the NHS England indicated ‘minimum adequate staffing’ calculation for our service. That 54 staff would have cost £3 million each year in the short term, but saved the region a net amount of £217.5 million over 10 years. One group’s dramatic victory is another group’s missed opportunity to save hundreds of millions, I suppose.

Against a backdrop of yet more years of austerity imposed by this disappointing Labour government, the achievement of this joint Unison and Unite endeavour is a shining example of the power of collective action.

We thank Strike Map and all who supported us to achieve this success and solidarity to all those on strike currently.

We hope our efforts and success encourages others to do what’s right. No staff should feel forced to work within services that are unsafe or ineffective. We have a right to withdraw our labour and demand more for our service users, their families and colleagues. We hope more people exercise that right and help return our NHS and our society into the healthy state we need both to be in.

Huge picket lines cause U-turn at Multi-Academy Trust

Jenny Cooper, Brent District Joint Secretary and Executive Representative for District 15 National Education Union, 11th June 2025

Over 100 NEU members at The Village School in Brent, London, won a U-turn from their Multi-Academy Trust. It followed three days of strikes that completely shut the special school which caters for children with complex needs of all ages.

Back in autumn, a few members approached reps with concerns that their pay had been deducted following hospital appointments and bereavement leave, things which had previously been fully paid. This was an important protection bearing in mind school staff cannot take leave when they choose. On closer inspection, reps discovered the Trust’s Leave of Absence Policy had been altered overnight with no consultation, and the new policy contained clauses which limited all hospital visits, including antenatal appointments, to three-hour limits including travel time.

Many of the staff cannot afford to live close to the school and have long journeys to and from work and were attending appointments in hospital trusts miles from the school. Being a special school, a majority of the workers are support staff in frontline roles working with some of the most at-risk children in London. These staff are not well paid for the work they do and could not afford to have pay deducted for reasons they could not control, often equality matters such as disabilities and long-term health conditions.

Union reps tried to get the Trust to reverse their decision through negotiations at the school’s JCC, and pointed out that the Trust had gone against their own policies and regulations as well as equality law. They denied this and refused to budge. So by spring, the NEU balloted for strike action, and as a result more than twenty new members joined. The ballot result was phenomenal, smashing the legal thresholds with more than 70 members turning up to the first day’s picket line which was noisy and vibrant with special school-style sensory activities!

After three days of picket protests the same size (despite rain on day 3!), the Trust gave in and restored the original policy and added an improved agreement that future changes to policy can only be by mutual agreement with union reps. All staff that suffered financial loss are to be reimbursed in time for their summer holidays!

STRIKES WORK!!!