Aslef train drivers are set to strike again over management practices (Photo: Guy Smallman)
Edinburgh Tram workers in the Unite union have voted to strike.
Some 90 percent of the 160 workers voted to strike after management didn’t address their concerns. The strike is over late running times to Edinburgh Airport.
There is a shortfall of five to six minutes in the running time between the airport and Newhaven.
The maximum driving time before a scheduled break is five hours, but many tram workers go this length of time without water or toilet breaks.
This is because of the service running late by up to 30 minutes because of delays to a new signalling system.
And a new tram timetable has added four minutes to each run. Some workers now experience health issues, including stress. Strikes will include drivers, ticket service assistants, controllers and vehicle maintenance workers.
The Unite union workers voted by 87 percent to accept an improved offer covering pay, sickness rates and holidays.
Workers agreed to a 6.25 percent pay increase, an additional five days’ holiday and improvement in sickness pay.
Over 1,500 jobcentre security guards struck from Monday to Sunday last week. Security company G4S employs the workers on an outsourced contract from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
G4S is refusing to meet the GMB and PCS unions without setting preconditions.
Some 90 percent of workers are paid just the minimum wage. Workers are currently paid £11.44 an hour and have had no pay rise since 2022. Bosses recently offered strikers just 23p extra an hour, but workers are keeping up their fight for £15 an hour.
The GMB said the DWP gave G4S £21 million to run security at jobcentres. This money shouldn’t be used to line shareholder pockets while staff struggle to get by.
G4S has deployed workers from other areas and employed new workers from agencies, paying £2 more than the guards currently receive. Many jobcentres across England are having to close entirely and some others offering only phone appointments.
Laura Maughan, GMB organiser, said jobcentre guards deserved “a proper, living wage and professional respect” and were being let down “on all fronts”.
“As we go into the fifth week of this dispute, G4S must realise we are not going to back down,” she added.
Some 40 traffic wardens in Ealing, west London, are set to strike. The workers were employed by Serco before being transferred to council-owned Greener Ealing Ltd this year.
But Greener Ealing refuses to recognise the original Unite union agreement workers had with Serco. Strikes are set for Tuesday next week until 18 September, and will escalate if the dispute is not resolved.
Care home workers win after walkout Care home workers employed by Pilkington Retirement Services at Ruskin Lodge in St Helens, on Merseyside, have won an improved pay deal. The Unite union workers struck for two days last week.
They won a five percent pay increase and they will no longer be expected to administer controlled drugs to residents.
The company originally offered just a four percent increase, plus a £500 non‑consolidated payment when they complete the drug training.
Around 650 PCS union members who work in passport control in London’s Heathrow airport are set to strike from 31 August to 3 September.
The border force staff are part of racist immigration laws set-up. But they have been forced to take on their state employers.
They are battling a new set of shift patterns and rosters imposed in April. The workers also struck for seven days in April, May and June.
Security guards at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals in central London have ended their strike after securing a pay uplift worth £3,000.
The 30 workers, who started strikes in January, secured an increase in their pay banding from 3 to 4.
Workers in the Aslef union at LNER, the train company which runs the passenger service on the East Coast main line, are set to strike against pay cuts. Action is scheduled every weekend between 31 August and 10 November.
Aslef says this follows “a breakdown in industrial relations, bullying by management, and persistent breaking of agreements by the company”. It’s a separate dispute from the national pay dispute, where workers in 16 train companies are
Health workers set to strike across four Manchester hospitals
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
Deadline to accept new conditions approaches
