A picket in the snow (Picture: Unite West Midlands)
Over 350 refuse workers across five sites in Birmingham struck on Monday. Birmingham council is trying to abolish the critical Waste Recycling and Collection Officer safety role—it would see around 150 workers who take on the role lose £8,000, and endanger all workers.
In 2023, refuse worker David Carpenter was killed on the job in Coventry by a compactor. Birmingham’s Labour-run council declared bankruptcy last September, and is trying to reduce costs by putting workers’ lives at risk.
The council is slashing £150 million this financial year and more than £150 million in the next financial year.
While hundreds of voluntary redundancies have already taken place and essential services have been cut, this is the first serious attack on the pay and conditions of council workers .
On 2 January, the Unite union workers began an overtime ban and work to rule. Over 50 workers were on the Perry Barr picket line on Monday.
There have been reports of GMB and Unison union workers breaking the picket line. The council has also brought in scab agency labour to try to break the strike.
Solidarity from the other council unions, Unison and GMB, is essential so that the council does not get a green light to widen its attacks on workers.
At the Perry Barr picket, there was a strong and optimistic mood on the first day of strikes, with workers prepared for the long haul.
The overtime ban and work to rule have already put the council under significant pressure, so some were hopeful that the strikes would be effective.
Unite is strongly supportive of the striking workers, and workers have indicated that they are willing to escalate if necessary.
Strikers are fighting for their rights and safety, and must be supported.
They are set to strike for a further 11 days, next Tuesday, 22 and 30 January, 7, 10, 18 and 26 February, 6, 14 and 25 March and 2 April.
Thanks to Mike Powell at the Perry Barr picket and David Hughes for help with this report
Education workers from the UCU union at Dundee University are balloting for strikes over redundancies.
University boss Iain Gillespie announced in November that there is a £30 million hole in the university’s budget and that job cuts are “inevitable”.
Workers were furious when he failed to show up to a question time event to answer their concerns.
Shortly afterwards, Gillespie quit his job after media reports emerged of his expense claims, including £4,000 on business class flights to Hong Kong for a two night trip.
In a vote organised by the university workers’ unions, some 89 percent of workers voted “no confidence” in the remaining members of senior management.
UCU members say that the bosses have not provided evidence of the need for cuts or been clear about how many job losses are proposed.
Melissa D’Ascenzio, the UCU branch co-president, said, “Cutting staff at this point will not be an answer to the crisis.
“And in fact it will lead already overwhelmed staff to burn out and it will actually impact students’ experience as well.
“We feel that the university could rule out compulsory redundancies.”
Dundee is just one of up to 100 universities facing a financial crisis and looking to make cuts to jobs and courses.
If redundancies are allowed to go ahead it will be devastating for the thousands of workers affected.
A strike at Dundee would send a message to university managements around Britain that workers won’t put up with cuts.
It is a campaign that all UCU members and the leadership of the union should get behind.
The ballot ends on 30 January.
Hundreds of workers based at Benton Park View in Newcastle started eight weeks of discontinuous strikes on 23 December.
PCS union members are taking action in support of the three reps sacked by the HMRC tax office in relation to their trade union activity.
The reps were all dismissed in 2023 following a period of successful strikes.
One of the sacked reps, Rachel Farmer, said, “It’s really amazing to see the members in the branch standing up for me, Joel and Gordon by taking part in this action. It means so much that they are prepared to stand with us and demand that we’re reinstated and that the victimisation of reps at the branch ends.”
Workers at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) based in London Gatwick Airport and Canary Wharf in east London have voted to strike over pay.
PCS union members rejected a pay insult of
4 percent for the lowest paid and 3 percent for other grades.
A PCS rep at the CAA said, “Is it too much to ask my employer to support me against the cost-of-living crisis which shows little sign of slowing down?”
PCS members at the Land Registry have voted to strike over bosses’ demands that they work from the office.
The union has slammed bosses’ “imposition of an arbitrary 60 percent attendance requirement”.
Workers are also angry “about the employer inappropriately using personal data which will lead to micromanagement”. They are right to strike.
Hundreds of retail, catering and cleaning workers at Harrods in London struck just before Christmas on 21 and 22 December.
The UVW union workers were fighting low pay and shocking working conditions.
But Harrods security assaulted UVW official Molly de Dios Fisher three times, reflecting the derisory attitude of Harrods has towards its workers.
De Dios Fisher was violently pushed to the ground three times, leaving her with a fractured finger and whiplash.
Petros Elia, UVW general secretary, said, “It is clear the guards at Harrods were acting on orders from above.
“It is the only plausible explanation for their horrendous violent and aggressive treatment meted out to union officials and workers on strike exercising their right to picket and protest.”
The assault is a demonstration of what bosses will do to crush workers standing up and raising their voices.
Around 70 Kurdish campaigners gathered outside the BBC in London on 22 December to show their anger at the Turkish murder of journalists Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Dastan.
They were killed in a drone strike in northern Syria. This attack was part of a Turkish assault on the Rojava area controlled by Kurdish militias.
The General Coordination of the Democratic Press Union said, “Cihan and Nazim were targeted for exposing the actions of the Turkish state and for being voices of truth in an increasingly silenced region.
“We call on journalists, media organisations, and all advocates of press freedom to stand in solidarity against the violent suppression of truth.”
Charlie Kimber
Workers at Princes Food struck across Britain on Monday, with more strikes set to follow.
The Unite union members voted to strike after bosses refused to negotiate with workers when they rejected a pay offer last year.
Now Princes Food are in a pickle, facing food shortages at the beginning of the new year. Household staples at supermarkets like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl could be in short supply due to the strikes.
Workers are set for strikes from Monday this week to 18 January.
First Bus drivers in Fareham in Hampshire are set to shut down services again from 11 January.
The Unite union members are striking on Saturdays and Sundays throughout January. This follows four days of rock-solid strikes around Christmas.
Drivers lost terms and conditions during the Covid pandemic and are determined to win back their paid breaks. Following talks with the public independent negotiators Acas, 122 out of 144 members rejected a pay deal worth 7.8 percent over two years.
First Bus drivers are right to strike—and the dispute could spread as pay rounds approach in Portsmouth and Slough.
Jon Woods
Strikes by 200 workers employed by Transport for Greater Manchester were called off after Unite union members voted to accept an improved pay deal.
The deal sees wages for the lowest paid workers increase by up to 8.9 percent.
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
Deadline to accept new conditions approaches
Labour’s health secretary has no answers
