Workplace In Brief


Mid Yorks Hospital strike

Hospital workers fighting massive pay cuts have forced Mid Yorks hospital Trust to extend the deadline for agreeing to new contracts by three weeks so that negotiations can proceed.

Plans to ballot all 3,000 Unison members at the Trust are on hold until the next meeting with the Trust on 24 February.

London firefighters fight cuts

After lobbies by the FBU, the London Fire Authority has voted not to comply with mayor Boris Johnson’s order to go ahead with public consultations over £45 million in cuts and the closure of 12 fire stations. The FBU has vowed to continue the campaign against the cuts.

PCS ballot

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) are voting in a ballot for industrial action, including strike action.

This national ballot, covering a quarter of a million workers, is about cuts in pay, pensions and terms and conditions.

The government is refusing to negotiate so the union has called the ballot which runs from 8 February to 4 March.

Construction protest

There is a mass picket at the Capenhurst construction site near Chester/Ellesmere Port planned for 6am Wednesday 20 February, organised by Unite and GMB.

Jacobs Engineering are refusing to sign up to full Blue Book terms (the national agreement covering this category of construction project).

Delegations of construction workers from sites in Cheshire, Merseyside and Wales are coming. Unite are providing transport from Liverpool Unite office, 5am at Jack Jones House.

Site address: Urenco, Capenhurst Lane, near Chester, CH1 6ER

An NSSN supporter in the construction industry

Fight prison closures

On 13 February members of the POA prison officers’ union will be lobbying parliament in protest at the plans to close seven prisons and partially close two more.

This will cut 2,600 prison places from an already overcrowded system. Almost 5,000 places have been lost since the Con-Dems were elected.

Overcrowded prisons lead to greater levels of violence, drug use, and bullying behaviour. During 2011 there were already an average of 42 assaults a day in prisons.

These cuts have more to do with the drive to the privatisation of prisons rather than the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ the government boasts of.

The lobby starts at 12.30pm in Old Palace Yard.

Defend the Four

Unison members campaigning against witch-hunts against socialists in the union and for democratic control over all Unison structures are urged to encourage their branch to support a model resolution.

This can be found on www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk.

Unison members are also urged to support the Reclaim the Union candidates in the elections for the union’s national executive.

BBC strike

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) working for the BBC are due to strike on 18 February unless the corporation agrees to end compulsory redundancies.

A work to rule will start on 15 February. The BBC is planning 2,000 job cuts across the organisation and is trying to force people out at the same time as advertising jobs to external candidates. Negotiations are continuing.