Unite members supporting the Birmingham bin workers “mega-picket”
Talks between the Unite union and Birmingham council are set to resume this week as bin workers keep up their indefinite strike against Labour’s savage cuts.
The strike has gone on for 100 days, with over 350 workers determined to stop Labour slashing their pay by £8,000 a year.
For a sustained period at the beginning of the strike, workers blocked scab bin lorries. Labour used police to break up picket lines in April, and this saw the union retreat from stopping scabs.
But a hundreds-strong “mega picket” began to turn the tide and boosted workers’ confidence to start blocking lorries again.
An interim court injunction banned that—and was then made permanent. Unfortunately, the union leaders didn’t call for defiance of the injunction. They did not say they’d back workers to stop scab lorries.
Some activists, who aren’t Unite members, are blocking scab lorries as they go to empty rubbish at the tips. Any kind of disruption is welcome, but it is not a substitute for workers taking their own action.
Unite leaders have failed to build the momentum of the strike.
Workers have said defiantly they are willing to strike until December. But union leaders have not capitalised on this mood to fight. They have focused on negotiations rather than finding ways to escalate.
For months, the leadership has been arguing that the “right people” are not in the room. “Where’s John Cotton?”, the council leader, is now seemingly the slogan of the strike.
But even if Unite finds Cotton, the council and the Labour Party have proved it will not fold to negotiations.
The crucial tasks lie not in the negotiation room—but on the picket lines, with workers and their supporters blocking lorries.
Hospital consultant doctors could join their junior colleagues on picket lines later this summer after their BMA union announced an indicative ballot over pay.
The government awarded all doctors a below-inflation 4 percent pay rise earlier this year, but the union rightly describes this an “insult”.
The BMA is already balloting its resident doctors—formerly known as junior doctors—for six months of strikes. Strikes would run from July until January next year. Voting closes on 7 July.
The consultants’ ballot is at an earlier, “consultative” phase.
Unions representing thousands of other health workers, including nurses and healthcare assistants are also consulting their members. They have been offered an even worse government offer of just 3.6 percent.
All health workers are seeing their pay shrink as rents, mortgages and bills spiral. And they have to put up with working in a system on the brink of collapse.
Those pressures lead to thousands of staff leaving the job every month resulting in short staffing. This only adds to the problems for those that remain.
That’s why its right for every NHS worker to vote for strikes. This is a fight not only over workers’ pay but for the future of the health service as a whole.
Workers at a toxic waste incineration plant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, are set to strike over pay and pensions for three days from this Friday.
Around 50 Unite union members are demanding a full staff pension and a pay rise from bosses at Veolia.
Bus drivers at Stagecoach in West Scotland have secured a pay rise after strikes.
Unite union members have been on strike since 9 June. The strike was set to last until 21 July, but has been called off as workers voted to accept a pay deal.
Workers will see basic pay taken from £13 to £14 an hour, and then again to £14.50 in July 2026.
Construction workers at Shetland Gas Plant have won a massive 41 percent pay deal.
Around 12 Unite union members, who work in construction at the plant, will see their pay rise by 38 percent. Workers have also secured increased overtime rates and a paid lunch break for all workers, raising the package to 41 percent.
Cardiac theatre nurses at St Thomas’ hospital in central London have won a long-running dispute over hours.
Nurses had been forced by the NHS trust to “pay back” hours after being on long shifts. Sometimes nurses are needed to work while on call and are then scheduled to work the following day.
But they must take a number of hours rest—and nurses got paid for these.
Yet one manager changed this in 2019. Anyone who had to rest due to being on call and was scheduled to work the next morning would owe those rest hours back.
In April, workers voted to strike. The hospital was forced to permanently drop the payback policy and the strike was suspended. Unite says the dispute has now been fully resolved and the criminal policy dropped.
Civil service pension workers in PCS union have voted to take industrial action to gain full union recognition.
The workers are at risk of being transferred to an outsourcing scheme run by giants Capita.
Health workers set to strike across four Manchester hospitals
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
Deadline to accept new conditions approaches
