PCS members at National Museums Liverpool back out on the picket line on Tuesday (Picture: @pcs_union Twitter)
Strikers at National Museums of Liverpool (NML) are into their fifth week of fighting for a Covid payment.
The strikers were part of the PCS union strikes in January, February and March last year along with 130,000 other civil servants.
They won a 4.5 percent rise, plus 0.5 percent for the lowest paid—and a £1,500 one-off payment.
But NML bosses are refusing to pay the £1,500. Last week they offered just £250—which the strikers rejected by 94 percent.
The 230 strikers began an eight-week strike on 17 February. It is set to end on 14 April.
Striker Stuart said, “The government extended the £1,500 payment to all civil servants and out of 207 of those organisations, five are nationally-owned.
“We were the only ones not to obtain the pay. We’re attempting to compel our organisation, which doesn’t think it deserves to pay us.
“It’s trying to argue that we’ve had consolidated pay rises.
“But workers at the British Museum and at museums in Wales have had both the consolidated pay and also secured the £1,500 payment.
“We’re the only ones to not receive this. It’s getting to a situation where we feel like the employer is attempting to undermine us and saying we’re in the wrong.
“We’re not having that and we’re doubling down.”
Strikers are determined to get what should already be theirs from the greedy museum bosses.
The PCS union launched a strike ballot across the civil service in Britain on Monday.
A national survey had seen workers vote overwhelmingly in favour of continuing the campaign for better pay and conditions.
The dispute involves nearly 150,000 PCS members across 171 employers in the civil service and related areas.
An impressive 96 percent of members who took part in the PCS survey said they supported the union’s pay demands.
Over 80 percent were prepared to strike to achieve them and 66 percent supported a strike levy to fund paid targeted action.
The union’s pay claim is for an above inflation rise, pay restoration for previous years of below-inflation deals, pay equality across departments and a minimum wage of £15 per hour.
Other demands include a shortening of the working week with no loss of pay and a minimum of at least 35 days annual leave.
The union is putting on a series of “strike school sessions” from Tuesday of this week to Tuesday of next week.
Rank and file members should build networks among the workers being balloted that could be the basis of strike committees if they vote to strike.
The ballot closes on 13 May.
At least 380 workers were set to strike from Monday to Wednesday this week. TPR workers have held over 50 strike days in Brighton since September.
The PCS says bosses have committed to a key pay demand of the union.
But the union has a strike mandate up until 8 May, so strikes should have continued through negotiations to maintain the pressure on the bosses.
TPR members remain in the PCS national campaign and are currently voting as part of this wider dispute.
PCS union members at the Office for National Statistics began a strike ballot last week.
It was workers’ response to management’s plan of forcing all staff to be physically present in the workplace for 40 percent of their working week.
Some 1,200 workers in Newport, Titchfield, London, Darlington, Manchester and Edinburgh are voting. The ballot is set to close on 2 April.
Some 450 workers at a Scottish power station are voting on whether to strike.
The workers, employed by Magnox Limited at the Dounreay power station, are voting until 2 April.
Bosses offered a 4.5 percent pay offer from April 2023 but the workers rejected this by 95 percent.
The workers, in the Unite union, are craft technicians, general operators, chemical and electrical engineers, maintenance fitters and safety advisers.
The pay package of Magnox’s highest paid director went from £331,000 to £651,000 in March 2023.
Frontline workers at the debt advice charity Rooted Finance have voted 100 percent to strike in a dispute over pay, conditions and trade union recognition.
Members of the IWGB union struck on Monday and Tuesday. Their demands include better pay, improved training and an end to victimisation.
Workers want to be paid in line with other debt advisers linked to the charity.
Refuse workers in Wolverhampton planned to strike over pay this week.
Members of the GMB union at Wolverhampton city council’s Energy from Waste site were planning to strike from Wednesday to Friday.
Bosses have implemented a pay freeze since 2022. A council contract states that workers should be able to negotiate pay with council bosses annually.
The Unite union confirmed on Wednesday last week that Valve Components, based in East Kilbride near Glasgow, has claimed bankruptcy.
As a result around 100 workers are set to lose their jobs. The union needs to fight to save all the jobs.
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