Education workers on a picket line outside a Woodfield School in Brent (Picture: Lucy Cox)
Workers at Woodfield school in Brent, west London, are battling against bosses’ cuts. They were set to vote on management’s latest offer this week.
Strikers are determined to win against a management that is comfortable with advertising for a new CEO on a salary of over £130,000.
Meanwhile, bosses are slashing the jobs and hours of the essential support workers who educate and care for the children.
All of the children have complex special educational needs and disabilities (Send).
Striker Michel said it was essential that support workers had time outside core teaching hours to work with teachers to develop strategies based on nurture and care.
Without that, he said, the strategy becomes compliance.
He got huge applause for how he expressed this desire to care for the children with proper time and resources.
Parents also recognise the expertise and care of the workers at Woodfield and are widely supportive of the strike. Messages of support have also been flooding in to back the action.
Teachers at two schools near Dudley, Black Country, were set to strike on Wednesday and Thursday this week and from Tuesday to Thursday next week.
NEU union members are fighting bosses over unpaid additional work at Wombourne and Kinver secondary schools, both ran by Invictus Education Trust.
NEU Staffordshire branch secretary Rebecca Cann said it was “insulting” for bosses to expect workers to work up to 100 unpaid additional hours.
Elsewhere, a school in north London dedicated to children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) shut last week after workers walked out. Education workers struck last Wednesday at Woodlands School over staffing shortages, unsustainable workloads and inadequate cover arrangements.
More strikes are planned in the coming weeks.
In a Lancashire school, education workers were set to strike this Wednesday over virtual teaching.
Bosses at Valley Leadership Academy have implemented a virtual maths teacher. A maths teacher on the picket line said, “I will not stand back and allow the teaching profession to be downgraded.” She said it “diminished” teaching “into just imparting knowledge over a Team’s call”.
And teachers at Canary Wharf College, east London, were also set to ballot for industrial action after a proposed merger with another local academy chain.
Current bosses then declared cuts to holiday days while shortening the length of the school days.
NEU union members voted to strike in the indicative ballot and are now moving to a formal ballot.
Workers at business consultancy Diligenta are on strike over pay.
The Unite union members have suffered a real terms pay cut of 15 percent.
In January, workers demanded an increase of 7 percent.
There are pickets across at several sites in England and Scotland in Edinburgh, Kildean, Glasgow, Liverpool and Reading.
Workers in Peterborough were set to join the strike on Friday.
Most of the strikers are out for the first time—and they’re hopeful they can win. There’s enough money to pay the shareholders, so there must be enough to pay them too.
There were chants of “Christmas is on its way, Diligenta, where’s our pay?” But they are not expecting any offers until the new financial year.
Matt, Liverpool
More than 600 healthcare assistants (HCAs) at Epsom and St Helier hospitals are balloting for strikes after bosses offered “the worst backpay deal” in London.
A Unison union consultation showed that 99 percent of HCAs are in favour of walking out. Now the union has put the question in a formal industrial action ballot which closes on 22 December.
Bosses wrongly placed HCAs in band 2 of the NHS payscale—the lowest rung—saying they did no clinical work.
But unions pointed out that HCAs’ tasks regularly include ECG test, inserting cannulas and taking blood, which are all clinical.
Shamed NHS Trusts moved HCAs to band 3, but some are refusing to pay the full five years of backpay that HCAs are entitled to.
Epsom and St Helier bosses are offering just one year and five months backpay, robbing HCAs of thousands of pounds. They’re rightly fighting back.
Intensive care nurses at Bassetlaw Hospital, Nottinghamshire, face being fired and rehired on worse contracts this week.
The Unite union members are angry that bosses want them to work at sites which are 20 miles apart, rather than at their normal hospital.
The nurses fear the transfers are another step towards Bassetlaw hospital losing its ICU permanently through “decommissioning by stealth”.
They would also face overly long commutes before and after 13-hour shifts, with exhausted workers putting patients at risk.
The nurses began action short of strike action in mid-November and struck for two days later in the month.
They are now set to strike again from next Monday to Friday, which will overlap with the resident doctors’ strike.
Unite says strikes will intensify is the dispute is not resolved.
Workers are demanding the reinstatement of a trade union rep at a Leicester school.
Trade unionists have launched a campaign to reinstate Tom Barker, a Unison union rep at Ash Field Academy special educational needs school.
Tom, who is also Unison national executive committee member, was dismissed from his duties following a successful ballot for strikes.
His dismissal took place days after the ballot and with no prior warning of a complaint.
Tom’s suspension is a blatant attempt to silence members and victimise their rep.
Around 300 bus workers in Leicester are set to strike over pay. Their employer, Arriva, made a pitiful pay offer that was rejected by Unite union members.
Workers at the Hinckley and Coalville depots are set to walkout 11-13, 15, 20, 21 December and 5-6 January.
In Cambridge, bus workers are set for strikes over pay from next week. Unite union members plan to walk out on Wednesday and Saturday of next week and 22, 24 and 27 December.
Stagecoach is trying to push cut overtime rates by 12 percent on weekdays and by 20 percent on weekends.
Train drivers on Hull Trains struck for 48 hours last Saturday in long-running dispute over the unfair dismissal of a co-worker.
Aslef union general secretary Mick Whelan said,“Hull Trains sacked a driver, without proper due process, for doing nothing wrong. He has a completely clean safety record. He raised fears of fatigue at a safety meeting.”
Workers are refusing to allow bosses to carry out their witch hunt against members who raise concerns.
They have voted to continue strikes until February next year.
RMT union members employed by Svitzer Terminals at Fawley Esso Refinery have voted for strikes following the company’s failure to resolve a dispute over sick pay.
Workers at the terminal provide towage services to tankers at the refinery.
Strike dates are still to be announced.
Some 250 people rallied at the national demonstration last Saturday in support of the striking workers at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield.
The 40 Unison members at the museum have been out on strike since August in a dispute over pay. Members have voted to extend their strike until the summer of 2026.
Christmas strikes could take off at Luton Airport as over 300 baggage handlers are set to walk out.
Unite union members employed by DHL have rejected a 4.5 percent pay increase.
Over 400 EasyJet flights will be affected.
Workers are set to walk out on from Friday of next week to 22 December and from 26 to 29 December.
Nearly 300 workers at Bosch Rexroth in Glenrothes began strikes on Monday.
The Unite union members are raging as Bosch bosses are pushing contract changes with no negotiation.
This mean workers could lose 40 percent of their wage.
Bosses barely rowed back—workers most recently rejected changes which would have resulted in a 22 percent loss.
Workers are set to strike until 15 December.
Workers at BAE systems are keeping up the strikes.
Around 160 Unite union members at the Warton and Salmesbury sites in Lancashire have been on strike since November.
But those in the safety critical roles have voted extended strikes to 24 December, rather than ending on 17 December.
The strikes erupted after workers rejected a 3.5 percent pay offer.
Unite should be using the platform of workers’ action to demand just transition away from an industry complicit in Israel’s genocide.
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