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| Volume 53 Number 3, January 28, 2023 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Outsourced security guards at UCL, represented by the IWGB, are back on strike on 1 February, demanding an end to outsourcing, £15/hr pay and union recognition.
They will be joined by striking lecturers from UCU, taking part in the national day of strike action which includes teachers, rail workers and civil servants. Due to school closures, this will be a family friendly day of action.
UCL came under fire in October for subcontracting workers on a lower rate of pay in an attempt to break the last IWGB strike, despite running a £90 million yearly surplus.
Thousands of NHS physiotherapists in England have become the latest group to join the ongoing industrial action over pay in the health service.
Members of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) at 30 NHS services - one in seven - staged a 24-hour walkout on Thursday.
The walkout involved both physios and support staff.
As with other striking health staff, they continued to provide care in the most urgent cases.
This includes supporting people in critical care, those with severe respiratory problems and some stroke patients who require urgent physiotherapy.
But rehab work and discharge planning and community physio is expected to be disrupted.
More than 20,000 healthcare staff in northern Ireland staged a one-day strike on January 26 as part of a pay dispute.
The move from Unite, Unison and Nipsa members, involved some nurses, ambulance and hospital support staff. Ambulance staff includes paramedics, call handlers and support workers.
Workers were told they would get a 2022-23 pay award of £1,400, but unions said this would not settle the dispute as it was lower than inflation. The strike is a result of the failure to deliver a cost of living pay increase. Unite members across all five health trusts and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service returned an average 87 per cent vote in favour of strike action.
Under trade union law, emergency cover will still be provided and staff can leave the picket lines to attend.
Trusts have been in contact with patients who will be affected and further details are available on trusts' websites.
Strikes scheduled for next week by bus drivers employed by Abellio in London are set to go ahead, in the long running pay dispute.
The approximately 1,900 workers, who are members of Unite, will stage further walkouts on 1, 2, 3 February. The dispute will primarily affect bus services in South and West London.
The decision to go ahead with the strike action follows the rejection of two offers made by the employer, as they did not meet members' expectations.
Six Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) offices will strike during February and March as the PCS continues its strategic strike action. Its targeted strike action, part of the PCS national campaign over pay, pensions, job security and redundancy terms, began in December last year and DWP members in six offices have already taken strike action.
The initial phase of the PCS strike action has been targeted at areas that would have a significant impact on employers' operations. Redundancies and job security are two important parts of our national campaign and the government announced last year its plans to close over 40 DWP offices.
The next phase of the strike action, which will follow on from the national strike on 1 February, will involve members in Stockport Contact Centre, Bolton Benefit Centre and at four Liverpool jobcentres.
Unprecedented strike action will hit 150 UK universities throughout February and March unless university employers make substantially improved offers in disputes over pay, working conditions and pension cuts.
In total, 70,000 UCU members will walk out.
ASLEF members on the Bakerloo line on London Underground have voted in favour of industrial action by more than 99% in a dispute over a plan by management to allow trains to go into sidings and depots without a check to ensure that passengers have left the train.
The proposal by management has been dubbed "flash and dash" and means that passengers would have to depend on hearing unreliable PA announcements on 50-year-old trains to avoid being taken into depots and sidings.
Currently, trains are physically checked to make sure they are empty and it is safe for the driver to proceed. But, as part of its cost-cutting drive, management want to remove this safety check.
More than 200 workers, members of Unite the union, at London's Imperial College took strike action on 23 January over a 3.3 per cent pay offer.
The workers, who are non-teaching staff, last took strike action in November. Further strikes will be scheduled in the coming weeks if the dispute is not resolved.
With the real rate of inflation, RPI, at 13.4 per cent, this is a pay cut in real terms. Imperial College’s latest financial figures show it brought in an income of over £1.2 billion for 2021/22 and had cash reserves of £1.7 billion.
Members of NASUWT-The Teachers' Union in Scotland will be taking two further days of strike action on 28th February and 1 March in its ongoing dispute with the Scottish Government and employers over teachers' pay.
These further dates are a result of the continuing failure of ministers and COSLA to come forward with an improved pay offer.
The NASUWT is calling for a fully funded 12% pay award for 2022/23. The current pay offer of 5% for most teachers amounts to a further real-terms pay cut, following over a decade of pay freezes and below-inflation pay awards which have left teachers in Scotland almost £50,000 worse off as a result of their pay failing to keep pace with inflation.
Alongside the strike action NASUWT members will continue to undertake ongoing action short of strike action. Members are refusing to cover for absent colleagues and are attending no more than one meeting per week outside pupil sessions.
Members will continue to teach, plan lessons, and assess pupils' work.
(LabourStart)