Equinox strike
Strikers on a noisy and well supported picket line at the New Cross office of Equinox Care were wearing stickers saying ‘Equinox don’t care’, on 29 May.
Nobody there had gone into work on the first of two days of strike action at this drug and alcohol services charity.
The workers were furious that top management aimed to cut their pay by up to a quarter – by between £4,000 and £6,000 a year. “Top management are putting pressure on staff, saying striking would harm vulnerable, poor people,” pickets told us. “But their cuts could push workers here into poverty – that’s why we had a 98% backing in our ballot for this industrial action.”
Striking Equinox staff from west London joined their fellow workers on picket lines in south London then moved to the company’s main office in Southwark.
Equinox chief executive Bill Puddicombe is not subject to these cuts, in fact, for the first time in the company’s history he was offered “a small amount of performance related pay”.
The pickets made it clear that, if Puddicombe and Co’s ‘performance’ in resolving this dispute does not improve very quickly, there will be a second strike on Wednesday 12 June.
Roger Shrives
One Housing
Workers at One Housing Group (OHG) have voted to strike over wage cuts. OHG’s chief executive has just had a £31,000 a year increase in pay and bonuses, while he expects frontline support staff to accept pay cuts of up to £8,000 a year, £2,000 on average. This follows a three-year pay freeze.
83% of the Unite members have voted to strike, probably in mid-June.
O2
The Communication Workers Union is balloting its members in Telefonica O2 call centres for strike action in a battle over outsourcing.
This affects call centres in Bury, Glasgow, Leeds and Preston Brook. The company wants to outsource 3,500 jobs to Capita and there are reports that it wants to close the centres in Bury and Glasgow.
The ballot closes on 18 June.
