Category Archives: Industrial action

London bus drivers resume strike over heatwave working amid fears over air con deal

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Drivers concerned that bus operator’s offer to retrofit cabs on 730 buses will not be complete by next summer

London bus drivers have resumed strike action over having to work in high temperatures, amid fears that proposed improvements to air conditioning will not be complete by next summer.

About 1,500 members of the Unite union working across north London and Essex are taking part in the four-day strike from Tuesday to Friday, after industrial action earlier this month. Further stoppages are planned for the coming weeks.

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London bus drivers resume strike over heatwave working amid fears over air con deal

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Drivers concerned that bus operator’s offer to retrofit cabs on 730 buses will not be complete by next summer

London bus drivers have resumed strike action over having to work in high temperatures, amid fears that proposed improvements to air conditioning will not be complete by next summer.

About 1,500 members of the Unite union working across north London and Essex are taking part in the four-day strike from Tuesday to Friday, after industrial action earlier this month. Further stoppages are planned for the coming weeks.

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Airbus bows to remote working demands after series of strikes

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Aeroplane maker said to have watered down plans to restrict working from home to one day a week

Airbus has bowed to employee demands on remote working, after a series of strikes over its chief executive’s return-to-the office orders.

The world’s largest aeroplane maker is said to have watered down plans to restrict remote working to one day a week from September. At present, staff are able to work remotely for two.

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Train drivers in Great Britain consider strike action over lack of toilets

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Unions say basic needs still not being met a year after regulator told operators to improve facilities

Train drivers are considering strike action over a lack of toilets, with unions saying basic needs are still not addressed a year after the rail regulator told operators to provide more facilities and breaks.

Aslef said it was “putting the industry on notice”. The train drivers’ union added that companies had failed to deliver adequate toilets and reduce maximum driving times without a toilet break.

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V&A workers hold ballot to strike over pay and heatwave conditions

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Union calls for museum to become accredited London living wage employer and let staff carry water during shifts

Workers at one of the world’s leading art and design museums are balloting for “heatwave” strike action.

The ballot at V&A is taking place because of concerns about soaring temperatures and access to drinking water, along with pay and conditions.

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British Council staff in Italy to strike over proposed 80% workforce cut

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Soft power institution faces funding crisis linked to Covid-era government loan due to be repaid by September

Staff at the British Council in Italy will go on strike over deep cuts that would slash about 80% of its workforce due to a funding crisis facing the organisation.

Out of 130 of its teaching staff across Rome, Milan and Naples, 108 are being targeted as teaching activities in Italy face the axe. The move would end 80 years of British Council English language teaching in Italy as part of the organisation’s global mission to promote British culture and education across the world, sources said.

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Doctors’ leader claims new reduced pay offer killed chances of ending strikes in England

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Exclusive: Deal for resident doctors was in sight when sudden change by ministers forced latest action, says Jack Fletcher

Ministers killed the chance to end strikes by resident doctors when they suddenly reduced the amount of money they were offering to secure the peace deal, the doctors’ leader claims.

Dr Jack Fletcher accused the government of “playing games” and forcing resident doctors to embark on their 15th strike over pay and jobs, which is disrupting the NHS this week.

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British Medical Association accused of hypocrisy as its own staff strike over pay

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Union rejected 4.9% pay rise for resident doctors, who are on six-day strike, but offered its own staff 2.75%

The British Medical Association has been accused of the “height of hypocrisy” for offering its own staff below-inflation pay rises while demanding a 26% increase for resident doctors.

Tens of thousands of medics walked out of the NHS in England on Tuesday, the 15th time they have staged industrial action since March 2023 in their campaign for “full pay restoration”.

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Resident doctors in England to begin six-day strike after rejecting offer in pay dispute

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British Medical Association blame government for longest proposed walkout so far, with NHS leaders warning it could cost £300m

Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.

The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.

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Treasury won’t cut threshold for higher rate income tax, say sources – UK politics live

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Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn

This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.

Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates

1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.

Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.

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RMT accepts three-year pay deal for London Underground staff

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Agreement that will increase drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027 comes after strike action in September

The RMT union has accepted a three-year inflation-plus pay deal for London Underground workers, ending the dispute that led to travel chaos in London in September and increasing drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027.

The deal, with an initial 3.4% increase backdated to this April, means London Underground staff pay will rise in line with RPI inflation – higher than the CPI rate normally used for index-linked pay rises – with guaranteed minimum rates if inflation falls, making the total deal worth at least 9.2%.

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London tube strike shuts down services, causing congestion on roads

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Downing Street says ‘Londoners rightly fed up’ as commuters forced to find other routes to work on first of four days of RMT action

Downing Street said Londoners would be “rightly fed up” as commuters turned to the other trains, buses and bikes – or just stayed at home – as strikes by the RMT union closed the underground on Monday.

The numbers attempting to use any public transport were down by about a fifth, according to Transport for London (TfL) data, but that still left many crowding on to bus and overground services or congested roads at the start of four days of commuter misery.

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Airbus workers vote to strike for 10 days next month in pay dispute

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Unite says stoppages at Broughton and Filton factories could disrupt production of wings and delay deliveries

Thousands of Airbus workers in the UK are to go on strike for 10 days in September in a row over pay that threatens to disrupt the production of aircraft wings.

A series of two-day strikes are planned to begin on 2 September and continue throughout the month at the company’s factories in Broughton, north Wales, and Filton, near Bristol, according to Unite.

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Nine out of 10 nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reject pay award

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Royal College of Nursing urges ministers to improve 3.6% offer to avoid industrial action ballot later this year

Nine out of 10 nurses have rejected a 3.6% pay award for this year and warned they could strike later this year unless their salaries are improved.

In an indicative vote among members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 91% said the 3.6% rise was not enough.

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Resident doctors begin five days of strikes in England over pay – UK politics live

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The BMA says resident doctors have seen their pay fall by a much greater amount in real terms since 2008-09 than the rest of the population

The Conservatives have accused Labour of having “opened the door” to fresh resident doctors’ strikes with a “spineless surrender to union demands last year”.

Shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said: “They handed out inflation-busting pay rises without reform, and now the BMA are back for more.

It is hard to believe that, yet again, we are going into industrial action by our resident (formerly junior) doctors. It has only been a year since the last round of strikes and the length of this one – five days at two weeks’ notice over the summer when people are away – is designed to send a message.

Consultants were, by and large, supportive of the previous rounds of strikes. There is a recognition our residents have it harder than we did. There is more financial hardship than there used to be, their salaries don’t go as far as ours did when we were training, and they have amassed more student debt.

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‘Completely unprecedented’: resident doctors to press ahead with strike

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Wes Streeting says move shows ‘disdain for patients’ while BMA insist pay demands not taken seriously in talks

Wes Streeting has condemned the decision by resident doctors to “recklessly and needlessly” press ahead with strike action, saying it is “completely unprecedented in the history of British trade unionism”.

In a fiery statement after the British Medical Association (BMA) said there was no offer on the table that could avert the industrial action on Friday, the health secretary said resident doctors were offered changes to working conditions and career progression but chose to continue with industrial action.

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Public support for resident doctors’ strikes collapses ahead of fresh industrial action

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Exclusive: Latest poll comes as Wes Streeting urges medics to call off ‘unnecessary and unfair strikes’

Public support for strikes by resident doctors has collapsed, with barely one in four voters now backing their campaign of industrial action, according to the latest polling, which reveals the deepening unpopularity of further NHS strikes.

Previously strong approval by voters for strikes by junior doctors – as resident doctors were known until last year – has halved from 52% a year ago to just 26%.

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Crunching the data: are resident doctors in England badly paid?

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Resident doctors have voted to strike over pay but how much has their real-terms earnings changed since 2008?

Resident doctors in England have voted to strike for five days from 25 July, reigniting one of the NHS’s most bitter industrial disputes.

At the heart of the row is pay: the British Medical Association (BMA) says resident (formerly known as junior) doctors have seen their real earnings fall by more than a quarter since 2008. The government says the union’s demands are unaffordable, and they’ve already received generous rises in recent years.

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Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, BMA chair says

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Exclusive: Tom Dolphin says rise needed to redress real-terms earnings loss since 2008 and strikes could last years

Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS, the new leader of the medical profession has said.

Strikes to ensure resident – formerly junior – doctors in England get the full 29% could drag on for years, according to Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association’s new council chair.

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NHS bosses fear fresh resident doctors’ strikes could embolden other staff

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The Royal College of Nursing and Unison are undertaking indicative ballots to assess members’ willingness to strike

A looming fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff including nurses to take industrial action over pay, health service bosses fear.

Resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England are threatening to stage stoppages until January in pursuit of their demand for a 29% pay rise, after 90% voted in favour in a ballot on a 55% turnout.

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