Housing workers on the picket line in north London
Housing maintenance workers at Haringey Council, north London, completed their first week of an indefinite strike on Tuesday.
The Unite union members have not had a pay rise in over a decade. They are at least £6,000 out of pocket as a result of the council’s failure to stick to the promises over pay made in 2022.
Instead, the Labour-run council is prepared to waste a huge amount of resources on subcontractors.
They are potentially being used to break the housing workers’ strike.
Rose Wilson
Around 150 university and college workers discussed how to build a fightback to defend education at a conference in London last Saturday.
The meeting, hosted by the UCU union’s London region, came amid a financial crisis across higher education.
Professor John Holmwood from the Campaign for the Public University said the roots of the crisis go back to marketisation brought in by the Tory Liberal coalition.
“It’s a problem of the system that was brought in in 2010 and we are now living the fact that the system is unsustainable,” he said.
The coalition brought in a system where universities rely on sky high fees. In 2017 these fees were capped at £9,250 per year for most undergraduate students. But inflation has dramatically reduced the value of this amount in real terms.
Holmwood said, “It’s as if the government adopted policies that are deliberately undermining higher education.”
We need a publicly funded and free education system.
Camilla Royle
Gas workers are saying no to a pay freeze at the hands of their bosses at TVS Supply Chain Solutions.
Over 90 percent of workers at the firm have backed strikes after ten months of talks and no pay increases for three years.
Around 150 GMB union members walked out for four days from Friday last week and are set to strike for another four days from this Thursday.
Workers had previously worked directly for British Gas but have now been transferred over—a process known as TUPE—to TVS.
GMB rep Ricky Bryan said, “We were TUPE’d over after a two year pay freeze after being employed by British Gas, and going through fire and rehire together.
“Our members are angry because of the way we were TUPE’d over last year and were given a pay freeze of two years. And we’re still expected to not take a proper pay rise this year.”
On Friday, security guards at the Science and Natural History Museums are set to begin a three-day strike.
The UVW union members voted by 96 percent for strikes. The guards are demanding £16 an hour, full sick pay from day one and one more week of annual leave.
Outsourcer Wilson James offered to increase their pay from £11.95 an hour to £13.15.
But the UVW members have called the pay rise “too little, too late”.
Textile workers in Carlisle are planning to walk out over poor pay for 12 days in October and November.
The GMB union members weave luxury headscarves in Carlisle to a high standard. Many have years of experience.
Yet despite this, bosses at Lappet Manufacturing pay them a pittance and force an unreasonable workload on them. Workers are due to strike on Wednesday and Thursday next week and for ten further days in November.
Valley Vets has permanently closed four surgeries in Cardiff, Caerphilly, Pentyrch and Ystrad Mynach in Wales due to long term vet shortages.
In July, workers at Valley Vets struck for two weeks over low pay and are currently preparing to renew their strike mandate.
The lowest paid workers are demanding a pay rise to the living wage of £12 an hour.
A staffing crisis in the NHS
Health workers set to strike across four Manchester hospitals
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
