Resistance at Panasonic over pay + round-up

On the picket line at Panasonic (Picture GMB Wales and South West)

Around 100 Workers in the GMB union struck for the second Monday in a row at Panasonic Cardiff this week.

They are set for another strike on Monday of next week at the Pontprennau site. Workers rejected an insulting 1 percent pay offer after a pay freeze last year.

The company then withdrew its pay offer, stopped talks altogether and refused mediation through Acas. Nicola Savage, GMB regional organiser said, “Our members deserve a real pay rise, and we will fight until we get them one.”

• A consultative strike ballot of court staff over jobs and working conditions was set to end this week.
  The courts and tribunal service’s Common Platform is supposed to allow all participants in a legal case to access information digitally. But the PCS union says it threatens some 3,000 jobs.
• Delivery workers protested on Sunday outside Sheffield town hall and a local McDonald’s over cuts to pay.
  The members of the IWGB union also plan to strike on 6 December.

The bosses at Stuart delivery, which serves Just Eat, plan pay cuts of 25 percent. Pay will be slashed from £4.50 to £3.40 per delivery.

Delivery worker Bryn Atkinson-Woodcock said, “We should be getting a pay rise, not a pay cut. The pay at Stuart is bad as it is.

“Once you take out the rising price of fuel, insurance, vehicle maintenance, and tax, we’re making far below minimum wage. I work six to seven days a week, between eight and 12 hours and it’s obliterated my savings.”

• The threat of strikes has won restaurant workers at Harrods a pay rise. Wages will now go up from £9 an hour to £12.50. Chefs will now earn over £12.50.

But workers, who are members of the UVW union say their fight won’t end there and that they will go ahead with a ballot for strikes.