Walkouts best way to beat Merseyside post sackings + new rail strikes called

News

Plus news of RMT strikes, civil service pay action and a possible Merseyside NHS strike

Royal Mail bosses have suspended 11 postal workers on Merseyside and sacked six after a group decided to spend their breaks drinking tea—not alcohol—in local pubs.

It’s a sign of the dictatorial regime that Royal Mail bosses now want at the firm after the union signed up to a terrible deal with management.

Pressure from the public and workers has already forced Royal Mail to backtrack on some of the sackings.

But according to the Liverpool Echo newspaper some workers at the depot were so disgusted with management that they resigned.

The best response to these outrageous sackings would be immediate walkouts at the offices where the workers have started, spreading to other offices in solidarity. The CWU should back this.

It can’t be left to the official procedures or the delay of the anti-union laws.

Next rail strikes 26 Aug and 2 Sept

Around 20,000 RMT union members working on every grade of 14 train operating companies are set for further strikes in the national dispute over working conditions, pay and job security.

The action is scheduled for Saturday 26 August and Saturday 2 September.

Last month the RMT called three one-day strikes. This latest programme is a retreat from that level of action.

The Rail Delivery Group managements, backed by the Tories, have refused talks over a new deal.

They are unlikely to be moved by a lower level of strikes than last time.

Workers at the train operating companies have shown great resilience and commitment to a fightback.

They need urgently to press for escalation of the action.

400 NHS workers could strike soon  on Merseyside

Hundreds of health workers on Merseyside are preparing to strike over pay and grading.

Some 400 clinical support workers at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust have voted to strike in a recent ballot by the Unison union.

The workers deliver essential care alongside nurses on the wards and are employed at the Trust’s Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals on the Wirral.

The union says clinical support workers should be paid at least £2,000 a year more because they are performing tasks above their current band 2 pay grade.

Unison rightly insists that all these duties should be paid at a band 3 level.

The union has run a high profile and successful campaign across the north west of England. It’s already won many trusts to paying the higher rate—and got back pay to April 2018. Unison reports that on the Wirral, “An overwhelming majority—

99 percent—of clinical support workers voted to strike in a recent ballot. Industrial action is imminent unless the trust makes an improved offer to staff.”

Despite a collective grievance signed by over 400 workers, Wirral NHS bosses are trying to tough it out. They have offered to backdate pay only to December 2022, which would mean workers losing thousands of pounds.

Deborah, a clinical support worker at Arrowe Park Hospital, said, “Staff feel taken for granted. These clinical tasks are part and parcel of the job and the hospitals wouldn’t function if we didn’t work above our pay grade.”

Don’t pause the push for strikes in the civil service

The PCS union group executive committee in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has rejected the pay award for 2023-4.

The union says this is “in line with the union’s national policy, as it does not go far enough to reward our members or address the pay inequalities of DWP’s pay system.”

The offer is for a 4.5-5 percent uplift plus a one-off payment to cover the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

PCS union members nationally across all departments are voting now on whether to back the leadership’s “stop pay strikes without a deal” strategy. 

The PCS says the plan is to “pause our strike action (except for the small number of areas yet to commit to paying the £1,500 cost of living payment), while we engage in departmental talks on pay for 2023-4. Once the talks have taken place the national executive will reconsider PCS’s position.”

The DWP offer shows what’s on the table, and is another reason to abandon the strike pause and restart the strike campaign.

Some union branches have rightly launched a campaign to vote No in the union ballot and restart national strikes. The ballot continues to 31 August.