UCATT

Pay strikes brewing in education and construction

The past few days have seen teachers set to vote again on strike action in an ongoing dispute over a sub-inflation pay offer while thousands of carpenters, bricklayers, painters, joiners and labourers employed by local authorities voted in favour of industrial action for the same reason.

Executive members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) unanimously voted to proceed with a formal ballot at a meeting on Friday 5th September.

April 24 – hundreds of thousands to walk out

On Thursday April 24 thousands of civil servants, coastguards, council workers, FE lecturers and charity workers will join a national teachers strike of 200,000.

Employer attacks on workers' pay is the main issue at stake.

Teachers in the NUT are walking out over their pay deal which was supposed to be revised when inflation rose, but the government refused: effectively cutting their wages.

20,000 Birmingham council workers to strike

20,000 GMB, UNISON, AMICUS, TGWU (Unite) and UCATT members will strike alongside teachers and lecturers against council plans to use ‘Single Status’ negotiations to cut pay and jobs.

Council workers will be protesting against the new pay and grading system imposed by Birmingham council last week, affecting 40,000 staff.

UNISON has branded the structure discriminatory. Though it was designed to end wage inequalities, some workers will lose up to half their pay.

UK building workers to prepare for 2012 Olympics

The Olympics will bring much new construction work to London, and some union activists look to the opportunity for a greater say both in the unions they are members of and in the industry itself.

Building workers met in London on Monday evening 27th Nov to discuss possibilities for union organising during the preparations for the 2012 Olympics.

Members of all four unions associated within the construction industry were present at the meeting called by the newly-formed Building Workers Rank and File Committee.

Construction: Struggle at Laing O’Rourke, Britain, 2004

The following article provides a short summary about a strike of building workers in London in Autumn 2004. Apart from the more or less self-organised character of the struggle, with workers assemblies in parks and blockage of the site entrances, we think that there were two main interesting aspects of the dispute.

1) The fact that eastern European workers got involved. So far capital has more or less managed to use the eastern European countries as a large pool of labour force which could be mobilised for short term projects like large construction projects or the seasonal work in the harvest.

1999: Dahl Jenson construction strike

Immigrants demonstrated their willingness, when asked, to support British workers in struggle in this victorious strike of 300 building workers employed by different firms.

The week before Mechanical Installers and Pipe Fitters working for Dahl Jenson found that cheques for the last three weeks work had bounced. With massive amounts of overtime being worked some workers had lost as much as £2,000, although these figures were the exception as the workers calculated that the £55,000 in total owed was split between almost 100 workers.

Heathrow: Three day strike at Terminal 5

Construction workers for Laing O'Rourke at the Heathrow Terminal 5 site are likely to begin a three day strike from Tuesday morning at 6.45 until the same time Friday morning over their ongoing pay dispute.

Workers have rejected Laing's offer of 67p/hour bonuses, demanding the £1 awarded to other workers on the site some time ago.

An overtime ban has been in force since 28th January. This is the most recent of a series of strikes at Terminal 5, and will be a joint action by members of the GMB, TGWU and UCATT unions.

BACKGROUND
* Heathrow building workers set to strike again

Strike action hits new Heathrow terminal 5 site

Nearly 1,000 workers building a £4. 2bn terminal at Heathrow airport went on a 24-hour strike today.

Nearly 1,000 workers building a £4. 2bn terminal at Heathrow airport went on a 24-hour strike today (16 Dec ). Picket lines were set up at Terminal 5 (T5) from before dawn as workers from three unions took action over bonus payments.

“More than 900 people have stopped work today,” said Steve Kelly, construction branch secretary of the GMB union, who was on a picket line.

Laing workers to strike at Terminal 5

Hundreds of workers employed by Laing O'Rourke at Terminal 5 will stage a two-week overtime ban and strike several times in December and January.

The first strike days have been confirmed as starting at 6.45am on Friday 16th and ending 6.45am on Tuesday 20th December, an overtime ban will start at the same time, and further strikes are planned between the 20th and 23rd of January. The dispute is primarily over a £1/hour increase on bonuses which other contractors on site have agreed to.

Wildcat action brewing over the Laing O'Rourke 'contrick'

Workers employed by construction giant Laing O'Rourke are refusing the company's new pay and conditions deal.

Under the new contract or 'contrick' as it has been renamed by workers, pay will be halved, bonuses will be decided by management, a day off must be planned 40 days in advance and holiday pay could be cut by £20 per day for each worker. Management has told workers they will be sacked if they do not sign.