Around 100 workers in Newham, east London, are striking over a pitiful a 3.2 percent pay rise
Over 100 strikers joined a picket line in Newham on Tuesday. The Unite union members carry out repair work for the local authority and were on their third of four days of strikes.
Workers also struck in Bristol, Stoke-on-Trent, Leeds and Suffolk in a dispute that involves over 1,000 workers nationwide.
Union branch co-convenor Martin said the workers had been offered a 3.2 percent pay rise that is not good enough.
“We’ve had years of low pay offers,” he told Socialist Worker. “The other thing we are striking over is an attack on our terms and conditions.”
“We worked all the way through the Covid-19 pandemic—every single day. Everyone here put their life and their family’s life at risk but they still showed up because people had emergency repairs.”
The workers’ pay and conditions are agreed nationally. Bosses want to move towards a job evaluation process that would mean a massive pay cut.
Wayne said he stands to lose £15,000 a year if he is moved off the pay framework known as the Red Book.
“If you clear properties and drive tippers you are not considered productive”, he told Socialist Worker.
“We are the ones running up and down the stairs bringing fridge-freezers and washing machines down stairs. I’m in my 50s and the bloke I work with is 65. It is getting harder and harder and they want to drop our wages.
Window-fitter Lee said, “Everyone here is a different trade. We just don’t want our wages to be dropped. Nobody wants to lose money.”
Cameron said that bosses plan to take apprentices like him out of the pay agreement.
“You won’t be able to get an apprenticeship,” he told Socialist Worker. “How will the next generation learn? It will damage the council.”
Zee added that the changes will make it harder for apprentices to get a job once they finish their training.
The union says that the workers are fighting for their survival as skilled craftspeople. It says that job evaluation will mean deskilling. Local authority workers will become multi-operatives who drive around doing small jobs while everything else is done by a contractor.
The workers are prepared to take more action if bosses don’t start listening. With local government workers in the Unison union set to ballot next month, they should push for coordinated action.
Office cleaners in the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (Caiwu) won a major victory.
The cleaners work in London offices run by Argyll Club. Bosses at Sustainable Business Facility Management tried to cut their hours while expecting them to do the same amount of work.
But management agreed to reverse their plans ahead of a planned strike and protest through central London that would have taken place last Thursday.
Midwives at the South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Trust have voted to strike to prevent being rostered as “on call” on their days off.
Royal College of Midwives (RCM) members voted by 92 percent to walk out. The union has not yet issued any strike dates. It says any initial industrial action will be limited to midwives refusing to cooperate with the disputed new arrangements.
But the RCM rightly says, “Rest days must be protected. Rostering midwives to work on call on their much needed days off is unsafe, unsustainable and totally unacceptable.
“Safe staffing is the foundation of safe care and that means ensuring the midwives looking after women and babies are properly rested and supported.”
Operating theatre workers in Bedford are set to strike for 48 hours from this Thursday in a dispute about overtime payments.
The Unite union members are angry that bosses have scrapped a payment worth up to £120 per shift for those overtime hours.
Mark Williams, a senior operating department practitioner at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, said, “Taking away overtime pay shows a complete lack of respect for hospital workers.”
Theatre assistants in Leeds are also striking.
The Unison union members walked out on Monday and plan to stay out for two weeks in a dispute over low pay and back pay.
There will be picket lines at the Leeds General Infirmary this Friday and further pickets at St James’s University Hospital on Monday 29 June and Friday 3 July.
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