From RMT website (20 Apr): Over 40,000 railway workers on Network Rail and 15 train operating companies (TOCs) will be balloted for strike action in what RMT has called “potentially the biggest rail strike in modern history.” Network Rail intends to cut at least 2,500 safety critical maintenance jobs as part of a £2bn reduction in spending on the network. Staff on the TOCs have been subject to pay freezes, threats to jobs and attacks on their terms and conditions. The ballot opens April 26 and closes May 24. If members vote “yes” in the ballot and breach the anti-trade […]

We headline this week’s NSSN bulletin with two disputes by low-paid hospital workers in Birmingham and Reading. While the Heartlands workers work directly for the NHS, those at the Royal Berkshire are contracted to Kingdom Services Group Ltd. Both will be continuing their action into February. Please support these NHS workers on the frontline during the pandemic. Outrageously, their reward is attacks from management. We call for all outsourced workers to be brought back in-house and for a 15% pay rise for all NHS workers as well as defeating the Tory public sector pay freeze.   Unite: Security guards at […]

Seven members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) at Listerdale Primary School in Rotherham have taken two days of strike action (2-3 December) against the unjustified suspension of their headteacher. The head was suspended by the Academy Trust in September at 8am one morning without union representation. The reasons for the suspension still haven’t been made clear, even the head himself doesn’t know! Rotherham NUT branch secretary Fred Sprague told me: “The Trust have said its not for safeguarding reasons, he hasn’t run off with the school fund and he can’t impede the investigation because he doesn’t know why […]