Counterfire’s weekly digest with the latest on strikes and workplace struggles

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Hundreds of workers employed by Google walked off the job on Wednesday. Scores joined the Unite-organised protest outside the company’s UK headquarters in Kings Cross, central London protesting at the company’s refusal to allow employees to be accompanied by their union reps at their redundancy consultation meetings.

The protest follows a similar walkout by Google employees in Switzerland last month, with claims that the company had refused to implement job-saving measures suggested by workers.

Unite is in regular touch with their counterparts in Switzerland, Germany, the US and Ireland, through the ‘Alphabet Alliance’ and hopes to generate a global response to what is a global attack by Google on its workforce. The company is seeking to sack 12,000 workers worldwide, as the tech industry worldwide seeks to boost profitability at workers’ expense. In North America alone, nearly 300,000 jobs have been destroyed so far this year.

The company made profits of £896m, on a turnover of £3.4bn, but this apparently is not enough for the company’s “activist investors”. Among the proposed swingeing cuts, the company is alleged to have stopped paying maternity pay without notice, and is insisting that employees seeking legal advice on redundancy packages (a statutory requirement) can only use company-approved solicitors – union solicitors are not on the list!

The cuddly image so many ‘tech entrepreneurs’ like to project of themselves disappears rapidly where their profits are concerned, and the true nature of all capitalist ventures is exposed – as one protesting Google worker put it yesterday: “Profits first, last, and in between; human beings can go [insert cussword here]”. Which could account for why Unite has seen its membership at Google grow from only a few dozen 3 months ago, to over 1,000 now.

Teachers: the fight’s still on

Over 190,000 NEU teachers in England voted to reject the government’s insulting pay offer. In just 6 days, the electronic ballot saw 98% of teachers – on a 66% turnout – vote to reject the offer.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan offered a measly 4.5% rise for next year, combined with a one-off payment of £1,000.

The union’s annual conference began on Monday morning with the announcement of the overwhelming vote to reject. The following day, Conference delegates agreed a strategy that includes 5 further days of national strike action, starting on 27 April.

Dundee Council workers give outsourcing the middle finger 

300 trades’ workers, members of Unite struck this week and will stay out until 28 April. The workers want “cast-iron guarantees” from the Council that their jobs are safe. It is claimed that the Council is preparing to outsource its work to private contractors.

Joiners, plumbers, electricians, scaffolders and labourers returned a 95% vote for strike action to keep their jobs in-house.

There is also dissatisfaction over the way call-out payments are made, and that management are using vehicle trackers to spy on council employees. If the Council doesn’t satisfy the strikers’ demands, then further action is planned for May onwards.

Passport to better pay

PCS Passport Office workers began a five-week strike this week across all 8 passport processing centres and will continue striking until 5 May. The workforce is over 1,000-strong and will be picketing in Glasgow, Liverpool, Durham, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport.

PCS is also holding a national strike on 28 April with all 133,000 of its members across the civil service with a strike mandate. 

Junior doctors set to strike

Junior doctors will be striking between 11 – 15 April in continuance in their demand for decent, inflation-adjusted pay.

This is the longest single period of strike action ever to hit the NHS and will affect health services everywhere.

The BMA says:

“It is with disappointment and great frustration that we must announce this new industrial action. The Government has dragged its feet at every opportunity. It has not presented any credible offer and is refusing to accept that there is any case for pay restoration, describing our central ask as ‘unrealistic’ and ‘unreasonable’.

“Even yesterday they continued to add new unacceptable preconditions to talks instead of getting on and trying to find a resolution. We therefore have no confidence that without further action these negotiations can be successful.”

The BMA aren’t just speaking for health workers here, but the entire public sector. Let’s make sure those vibrant picket lines get the solidarity they deserve. You can also donate to the strike fund here.

There will also be strike rallies in London at Trafalgar Square on Tuesday 11 April, 12pm; in Leeds in Victoria Gardens on Friday 14 April, 2-4pm, and in Birmingham on Edgbaston St near Bullring on Friday 14 April, 12pm.

Royal College of Nursing: attacking their own members?

The RCN, the union for nurses, has been balloting on an offer from the Tories since last week. There has been widespread opposition from rank-and-file nurses, which would see them get a 5% pay rise (less than half of inflation!) and a one-off cash payment that would be wiped out by the spiralling cost of living. NHS Workers say No! has rapidly built networks of rank-and-file health workers campaigning in the RCN, Unison, GMB and Unite to reject the deal.

It is too soon to say if nurses will accept or not, but the RCN leadership has not simply put its case to them and waited for the result. In a shocking move, RCN leaders have reported nurses involved in the #VoteReject campaign to both the police and Nursing and Midwifery Council – the body that can strike nurses off the register! The excuse for this behaviour has been “bullying and harassment” and fraudulent petition signatures, but nurses involved in the campaign are calling it an attack on democracy.

This action with RCN is horribly reminiscent of situations decades ago, in which union leaders would impose deals on members against their will by misusing disciplinary tactics and the threat of legal action to crush dissent. RCN members should stand strong in the face of intimidation, and be supported by the whole of the rest of the movement.

Culture on strike

British Museum and British Library workers who have been striking this week held a joint rally outside the British Museum which had been completely shut down. Trade unionists from other unions came to speak and members of the public turned up to show their support.

Earlier in the week the British Library was forced to announce a postponement of an event scheduled for 14 April to July because the speakers Rebecca May Johnson, Nigella Lawson and Jonathan Nunn said they would not cross the picket line. The solidarity is spreading far and wide!

NHS consultants in England to be balloted in May for industrial action

The NHS revolt shows no signs of letting up. The increasingly fiery BMA will be balloting its consultant members from mid-May onwards.    

The BMA’s Dr Vishal Sharma says:

“After fifteen years of real terms pay cuts, the Government’s commitment to enter talks about how to restore consultants’ pay and reform the DDRB is long overdue.  Both doctors and the NHS bear the scars of the broken pay review process. Unless these issues are fixed, the NHS will continue to haemorrhage talent and essential expertise, leaving patients without the highly skilled doctors they need to care for them. Our members have made it clear that they are ready to strike. It is entirely in the Government’s gift to prevent that.”

Never forget, the NHS is our terrain. The Tories encroach upon it at their peril.