The Socialist 24 March 2010

Strikers can beat BA bosses

BA cabin crew can win

Message of support for striking BA workers from Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins:

Striking British Airways cabin crew pickets speak to The Socialist

Support trade union and socialist alternative: Workers reject main parties

Trade unionist and Socialist Coalition

Salford: The growth of 'Hazel Must Go!'

Woolwich and Greenwich: For a workers' MP on a worker's wage

Stoke Central: Fighting for the millions not the millionaires

Trade unionist and Socialist Coalition general election launch rally

'MPs for hire' scandal

Hewitt's big business alliance

New workers' party needed

MPs: in it for the money

Far-right EDL outnumbered in Bolton, police try to even the odds!

EDL attend anti-racist meeting

Nottingham anti-EDL anti-BNP conference

Sussex: Students gain a victory - but fight must go on!

Cuts to higher education announced: Students fight back

Socialist Party youth meeting

On the march against cuts

March 1990 anti-poll tax demonstration

Massive rejection of Sarkozy's policies presages a 'third round on the streets'

Obama's neutered health bill limps through

Nottingham council targets the vulnerable

Dickens is back: Implications of poverty revealed in London

Barking council: Late developers

Battling against school academies in Hastings

HP workers take further action

Rail safety disputes

Previous issues, etc

Print this issue




Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/617/9079

Google search the site	Printable version	email to friend

Home | The Socialist 24 March 2010 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Bookshop

HP workers take further action

Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members working for Hewlett Packard (HP) have announced a further four days of strike action in support of demands over pay, job security and collective bargaining rights. The action will take place on 29-30 March and 6-7 April.

Ian Fitzpatrick

The workers provide IT support for organisations including government departments such as DWP, MoD and for General Motors. This new escalated action is aimed at causing as much disruption as possible to services over the Easter period.

The union has been in dispute with HP since January with workers taking part in three days of solid strike action in January and March earlier this year. Workers are sick of being made to supplement company profits with cuts to jobs, pay and conditions.

The PCS union remains frustrated at the lack of progress over meaningful discussions at a company where it is considered acceptable to pay the bosses in excess of $40 million and yet freeze the pay for many involved in this dispute who are barely above the minimum wage.

PCS will be taking the issue to government ministers and highlighting the hypocrisy of taxpayers' money being used to subsidise the rich while low paid PCS members face the threat of redundancy. The government is awarding contracts to private companies who seem intent on profiteering at the expense of workers.

While the union remains open to meaningful negotiations, senior management appear determined to remain on a collision course with their workforce. At a time when the company has recently posted an annual profit of $7.7 billion, the workers remain determined to deliver solid strike action, a political message to government.

Strikes will take place in Newcastle, Washington, Preston, Lytham St Annes and Norcross.

In this issue

Strikers can beat BA bosses