Unison
Key workers strike over single status
The bitter dispute over single status is growing with more strike action being taken by the City Parking Attendants and members of support staff at Holbrook Primary School.
UNISON has now given the Council official notice that their members in Holbrook Primary School and the City Parking Attendants will be coming out on strike on the 7th 8th and 9th of February. This follows a recent ballot of the members resulting in a 100% vote for strike action.
Coventry council strike intensifies
Workers at Coventry Council, including school admissions officers and street cleaners began a two week strike today.
Since our previous coverage the action has escalated, with a spokesmen from Unison stating that workers at the council could be on strike non-stop for as much as six weeks.
The "single salary review" imposed by the council affects thousands of staff, with many suffering pay reductions of up to £9,000.
One-day national NHS strike
Workers at the supply agency NHS Logistics have walked out on a symbolic one-day strike to protest the planned privatisation of the logistics service, in the first national NHS strike for 18 years.
NHS Logistics is due to be sold to the transport company DHL at the beginning of October, and little more action is planned except potential further one-day strikes. According to Unison, other public-sector workers including fire-fighters and nurses have been visiting the pickets to show solidarity.
Three day strike at Whipps Cross Hospital
This week there was an escalation in the long running dispute betweeen cleaners, porters and switchboard staff, and their private employers at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London.
By yesterday lunchtime approximately forty workers were on the picket line for the first of three days of strike action involving around 200 members of staff, members of Unison. They are striking to gain "Agenda for Change" levels of wages, agreed three years ago but ignored by Rentokil Initial since they were due to come into force earlier this year.
London: Hospital porters and cleaners on strike
Porters, cleaners and switchboard staff employed by Rentokil Initial, based at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London, have been on strike since 21st July.
An agreement over pay and conditions was made in 2003, due to come into force in April 2006, several other East London hospitals agreed to the deal, only Rentokil at Whipps Cross has failed to honour it. The pay award is roughly equivalent to a £2 per hour raise, for staff who in some cases earn as little as £5.52 per hour, the agreement also included increases in leave entitlement.
More NHS job cuts
Another 1,000 jobs are to be axed in the health service, this time from the relatively new NHS Direct, bringing the total job losses across the sector to 13,000 over the past few months.
Citing a £15m deficit, health bosses intend to shut centres at Doncaster, Scunthorpe, York, Chester, Bolton, Preston, Chorley, Southport, Cambridge, Croydon, Brighton and Kensington over the next 18 months.
NHS job losses grow - as does opposition
According to health union Unison nearly 7,000 job losses have now been announced across the NHS - with more to come.
They include a 1,000 posts at NHS Direct and North Staffs University Hospital Trust, 160 at Medway NHS Trusts in Kent and 300 at the Royal United Hospital, Bath.
UK: 1 million workers strike to defend pensions
Tuesday 28th March 2006 saw over a million workers take part in the largest one day strike in Britain since the general strike of 1926.
Every town, borough and city in the country saw workers set up multiple picket lines to defend their pension rights.
1.5million set to strike today over pensions
Workers across more than nine different unions are set to strike today over an attack on the local government pension scheme, with the Labour government planning to increase the age workers can retire at.
You can read the background to the strike here on libcom.org news:
http://libcom.org/news/article.php/uk-pensions-strike-170306
You can also check out our new in-depth feature on the pensions crisis, currently under construction here:
http://libcom.org/pensions
libcom.org news
Making their minds up? Unions ballot for pension strikes
For the third time in two years, the major unions have agreed to ballot for a general strike over public sector pensions.
The news follows the splitting of the public sector pensions agenda into ‘national’ and ‘local’, with national-level workers getting a guarantee of immunity from pension changes for existing workers last years.
Local government workers were told they would have to negotiate their own terms separately, leading to the secondary confrontation.
