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

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Next Saturday’s Durham Miners’ Gala will be a huge labour movement gathering, as it is every year. But this year it is happening one year into a big upsurge in strike action. Mick Lynch, RMT general secretary, announced “The working class is back” to last July’s rally. Since then we have seen big national strikes by a range of unions.

The rally, which is at the centre of the day’s events, will hopefully express the spirit, combativity and determination of the striking unions. Those qualities will definitely be evident on the great procession through Durham – with banners and brass bands – which will be a focal point for striking workers from around the country. This is a chance to further build a culture of solidarity and help renew a fighting working class movement.

Prime Struggle

The latest phase in Amazon workers’ battle for their rights is coming up. The company’s much-promoted “Prime Week” is in mid-July, and the GMB estimates that almost a thousand of its members will strike while the exploitative multinational is trying to do one of it’s key sales drives of the year.

From a difficult start last year, union activists at Amazon will have now staged 22 days of industrial action, a considerable achievement against a bitterly anti-union employer. The entire movement should get behind the Amazon workers.

Pay takes off as solidarity secures a deal at Heathrow

More than 2,000 security staff employed at Heathrow airport have won a double figure pay rise through standing together and standing firm. Three months ago, the security staff working at Terminal 5 took strike action over the Easter period, but HAL (Heathrow Airport Ltd) claimed it had suffered little disruption. This time around, Unite took the argument to Terminal 3 as well, and the potential of the two terminals striking together concentrated management’s mind wonderfully.

The deal is worth between 15.5% and 17.5%, depending on grade, and includes a 10% hike backdated to January, with a further 1.5% due in October and a guaranteed 4% or inflation, whichever is higher, from January next year. Shift allowances, spot rates and salary ranges will all rise as the increases roll out.

Standing together brought a 50% increase on HAL’s previous offer of 10.1% and provides a lesson for us all: “Unity is strength” is not just a slogan – it has cash value.

IWGB at UCL target uni open days

Big play from Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) as they kick back against a security staff job cull by Russell Group doyen University College London.

The outsourced security staff protested to disrupt the university’s Open Day on Friday 30 June and will do it again on Saturday 1 July, resisting plans to make 40 staff members redundant and drastically reduce the contractual hours for many of the remaining workers.

Security Guard Jolly Seaka says:

“Four years ago UCL promised us they would treat us with the same fairness and dignity as their in-house staff.

“I took them at their word, and am now paying the price. UCL has gone back on their commitment and, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, are allowing our livelihoods to be cut away from under our feet.”

As the strikers marched around UCL buildings and rallied in the main campus, they chanted “UCL: Shame on you” and “No ifs, no buts, no racist UCL cuts”. They were joined by members of Unison and UCU and current and prospective students joined the march.

Cross-campus unity, including all the unions, would soon put an end to this unacceptable treatment of workers.

RCN ballot falls short – but the fight isn’t over

Nurses were left disappointed this week after it emerged they we unsuccessful in crossing the arbitrary and draconian ballot threshold to continue their strike action.

Of those who voted (43%), 84% voted to strike – over 100,000 members. As the rank-and-file campaign NHS Workers Say No said in a statement,

“While this means RCN currently does not have a legal mandate for strike action over pay, it shows the strength of feeling and underlines the fact that the fight for fair pay and to save our NHS is certainly not over.”

The stringent anti-trade union laws are the main block to nurses being able to take action and highlights why we must fight to repeal them. Unions who have beaten the threshold on reballots and aggregate ballots have shown that it is possible. So a loss of faith in the RCN leadership given their role in initially mobilising members to fight for 19% and then attempting to sell them a 5% deal – and showing open contempt for members who organised against the sell out – cannot be discounted as a contributing factor in the failure to win the reballot.

But the fight isn’t over – the crisis in the NHS is only going to worsen. RCN members should continue to support other groups of NHS workers on strike, and continue to build independent rank-and-file organisation to prepare for the next round of the fight.

Early Years workers vote for strike action in Lanarkshire:

Unison members among the 375 Early Years workers employed by North Lanarkshire Council have voted 97% in favour of strike action. The workers are furious over the local (Labour) council’s plan to regrade the workers from their current Grade 9 posts to Grade 7 – effectively a ‘fire and rehire’ strategy which would see a full-time worker suffer a pay cut of £6,500pa.

Unison branch secretary Mary Quigley said that the council should be looking to increase early years workers’ pay not cut it. The council denies it is operating Fire and re-hire, claiming it must address a £28m budget gap, and is offering voluntary redundancy and early retirement packages to staff.

“So, they are offering a real choice: pay cut or the sack” is how one angry union member put it.

“They want to reduce the budget gap, they could start with themselves. Des Murray (Council Chief Executive) trousered £170,000 last year; Derek Brown (Families and Education Director) made do with £134,000. With pension contributions, the top 11 earners on the Council cost us £1.25m, minimum. Let’s see them cut their wages, practice what they preach. Then they can talk to us.”

Glassworkers’ smashing the pay differentials

Workers in St Helens’ glassworks NFG in both GMB and Unite have voted to strike after the employer offered them 1% lower pay increases than at the Pilkington glasswork nearby… despite NFG and Pilkington being two arms of the same company that simply make different glass products!

Hundreds of workers will now participate in three days of strike action in July.

Senior doctors join the NHS pay revolt

86% of BMA NHS consultants have voted for strike action in response to chronic and sequential pay cuts.

The union had already announced that a 48-hour walkout from 20 July would take place if the balloted doctors backed action. This indicator of intent will follow straight on from the junior doctors’ July action.

The BMA’s Dr Vishal Sharma says:

“This vote shows how furious consultants are at being repeatedly devalued by government. Consultants are not worth a third less than we were 15 years ago and have had enough.

“The government can and must fix consultant pay now and for the future. Failure to do so will lead consultants to leave the NHS and the country, or towards retirement before their time. The loss of this expertise would be devastating for services, patients, and the future.”

The NHS consultants’ turnout was 71%. The anger in the sector isn’t going away.