Iain Dalton, Socialist Party Yorkshire
Unite members who are craft workers in building services roles have taken four days of strike action across six councils as part of a national dispute over pay and conditions.
Members rejected the 2025 pay offer of 3.2%. It follows a decade of freezes or below-inflation rises. Scandalously, it also takes apprentices out of the national agreement.
On the picket line in Leeds, Unite members told us of their frustrations that the acceptance of this ‘deal’ by the GMB union has meant the employers refusing to negotiate further, despite Unite being the larger union.
Leeds workers were further infuriated by the fact that the leader of Labour-run Leeds City Council, James Lewis, is the head of the bargaining body. Leeds Trades Council should write to him demanding he reopens negotiations.
