The Socialist 23 August 2017

Strikes get results

Coordinate the strikes to defeat the Tories

Glasgow jannies win famous victory against council cutters

Bin workers - fighting back wins!

Hundreds evacuated after Labour council dismisses cracks in tower blocks

Amazon tax halves as revenues soar - nationalise now!

RMT and the Labour Party affiliation debate

Defiant Barts NHS workers fight to stop Serco sabotage

Three-week Argos distribution strike

BA poverty pay dispute enters new phase of action

McDonald's workers vote to walk out in historic strike

Bin workers say: Sack Suez, stop rubbish cuts!

PCS: strikes to defend jobcentres

US: neo-Nazi violence reawakens resistance

Lewisham 1977: When socialists and workers defeated the far-right National Front

Opposing the National Front in Grantham

Charlottesville solidarity

The Single Market: a neoliberal tool of the bosses

Come to Socialism 2017

Chatsworth ward campaigners demand answers

Vital women's services under threat

Hull youth festival

West Midlands Young Socialists fight for free education on results day

NHS campaign receives Labour Party backing

Mutinies and strikes: when Bolshevism threatened British bosses

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Three-week Argos distribution strike

Castleford picket line 21 August, photo Iain Dalton (Click to enlarge)

Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Party

Workers at four Argos distribution centres across the country, including Castleford in Yorkshire, are taking three weeks of strike action to defend jobs and terms and conditions in the wake of Sainsbury's buying out Argos last year.

The action has been prompted by the company's decision to close their Magna Park site and transfer workers to Kettering, around 30 miles away.

Workers are concerned that further reorganisation could be coming in distribution and are seeking agreement about reasonable distances workers could expect to be redeployed.

Support is strong among the 100-plus permanent workers at Castleford. Despite management attempts to get workers from a neighbouring DHL-run Argos warehouse to cover the strike, workers at that site, members of retail union Usdaw, have refused.

In a retail distribution sector which increasingly is dominated by contractors such as Wincanton, DHL, Eddie Stobart and others, defence of in-house distribution networks, where the actual employer can be more directly held to account, is vital.

A victory is important to send a message to those in the distribution sector that workers will not be pushed around and ensure that distribution contractors are organised on the same terms and conditions as in-house staff, or brought back in-house.

Please send messages of support to [email protected]
Strike fund donations should be made payable to Unite the Union and sent to Paula Hutchinson, 37 Camden Road, Airedale, Castleford WF10 3LY

Unite takes legal action

James Hunter, Tyneside Socialist Party

On 23 August, Unite the Union announced legal action against Argos, now owned by the supermarket chain Sainsbury's, and employment agencies Single Resource and Templine. It materialised that they are attempting to break the workers' strikes by bringing in paid agency labour at Argos' central distribution centre at Barton business park in Burton-on-Trent.

Unite has accused Argos and those agencies of acting unlawfully.

Argos workers at Barton along with colleagues at Basildon in Essex and Bridgwater in Somerset are striking over Argos' failure to negotiate a fair national agreement concerning redundancy and severance packages. The action began on 15 August and ends on 5 September.

The legal claim cuts the first turf for a high court injunction if Argos and the agencies continue to violate regulations that are there to prevent the use of agency staff during industrial action and collusion in an unlawful manner.

Unite has urged Argos' management to engage constructively and positively in talks, rather than attempting to strike bust, and to lay out the basis for a deal concerning the lack of conditions that safeguard workers.

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