Strike action in January

In December 2023 Alexander Dennis offered a penny-pinching additional 0.5 per cent on its original four per cent wage offer (4.5 per cent), and four per cent for 2024. The pay offer was emphatically rejected by the workforce.

• Amazon workers at the Rugeley fulfilment centre are set to go on strike after 86% of those who voted backed the strike.
• The GMB union has reached 1,000 members at the Coventry fulfilment centre after 22 days of strike action.
• This will be only the second Amazon site in the UK where workers have taken industrial action.
• GMB senior organiser Stuart Richards said this is a game changing moment in the campaign to force Amazon to treat its workers better.
• Amazon has offered UK workers a pay rise of pennies and work conditions that are unfit for the history books.

Workers are angry at a series of issues including: Cuts in hours; Poor quality training; Health and safety issues not being addressed; Pressured work rates; Payroll issues and incorrect pay; Equal pay not resolved in a timely; manner; No collective bargaining with GMB

The RMT rail union announced the action following a ballot of Balfour staff working for the Central Rail Systems Alliance (CSRA), a joint venture between the firm, Network Rail, Atkins and TSO. The three strikes will be on consecutive weekends, starting on the 3rd of March and going until the 5th of March. The strikers are members of the RMT union, and are seeking a 5.5% pay increase.

BBC journalists in England will stage a 48-hour strike after rejecting revised plans on cuts to local radio. This will result in no local radio service being available in England. The union said concessions were made in talks brokered by the conciliation service Acas but they did not go far enough.

Supply chain workers who deliver fresh food to restaurant chains including Wagamama and Pizza Express have voted in favour of strike action. Almost 400 workers are set to walk out after rejecting a 6% pay offer. The workers deliver to several restaurant chains including KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Zizzi. Strike dates will be announced imminently. The GMB Union said the pay offer amounted to a real-terms pay cut.

Citizen Housing’s gas engineers, electricians, construction workers and admin staff will begin strike action over pay this month, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today. The workers are angry at a derisory four per cent pay offer from Citizen Housing, which had a turnover of £192.6 million and an operating surplus of £48.3 million for 2023/24.

Even with the four per cent offer, some workers will still only be on the national minimum wage. Meanwhile, Citizen Housing’s tradespeople are furious that years of falling wages in real terms have left them being paid thousands of pounds below industry standards. The housing association is trying to justify keeping wages low because it enacted a long overdue reward review scheme in May over terms and conditions. But this is totally separate from annual pay negotiations.

London tourist attractions including Tower Bridge, Old Bailey, Barbican, museums, gardens, parks and markets could be forced to close after workers voted to strike, More than 900 City of London Corporation workers will walk out for 24 hours on 25 May in a dispute over pay.

• 250 workers at the corporation are to strike over pay, with more industrial action planned if the dispute is not resolved.

• The workers are employed in a variety of roles, including security, police staff, grounds maintenance and administrative functions.

• The strike is scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 25.

Workers at the Co-op's only UK coffin factory, in Glasgow, Scotland, have gone on strike again over pay disputes. The Unite union said the strike began on Wednesday and would run through January 16. There have been several week-long strikes since October. The union claims Co-op bosses have failed to make an acceptable offer to resolve the dispute, while the company insists its offer is fair and needs to be proportionate to those made to the group's overall workforce of 60,000. The company has agreed to meet with the union next week in an attempt to resolve the dispute. The strike involves around 50 workers who rejected an offer of a 4% pay rise for 2022 and 5% for 2023. The factory employs 59 people in total, and some production has continued. The Co-op said the strikes had no impact on its supply of coffins.

The highly skilled printers, who are members of Unite, the UK’s leading union, are taking the industrial action after the company required them to accept new contracts or be dismissed (fire and rehire). The new contracts require the printers, who had already agreed to become more flexible, to work in the company’s production hall when required.

More than 300 workers employed by outsourced Fujitsu Services UK at Telford and offices across the UK will take strike action on January 30 and 31 after being offered a pay rise of just 1.5%. Their civil service colleagues employed directly by HMRC got 5% this year for doing similar jobs. The two days of strike action will take place on the two days prior to the self-assessment online tax return deadline.

The dispute is over a G4S below-inflation pay offer, meaning nearly 70 per cent of the security guards, are now only paid the minimum wage.

The five-day strike by 188 staff working for brewery giant Greene King has ended without a resolution to the pay dispute and more action is planned. Unite said union members rejected an offer of a 3% pay rise and one-off payment of £650, and more strikes are planned for 21-23 December. Greene King said it was "disappointed" its offer was rejected. Unite said the pay offer was a substantial real-term wage cut because of inflation.

Unite members will now strike from Tuesday 28 May until Tuesday 18 June. New dates for the warehouse worker walkout have been announced to include weekend shifts – causing further disruption to food and beverage distribution across the capital.

The affected warehouse workers take home just over £12 an hour and are suffering from the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis as a result, while rates for HGV drivers are also below market rates.

Around 100 workers employed at the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) in Coventry will strike over pay, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today (Monday). The workers have rejected a 3.5 per cent pay rise plus £400 one off payment for those on lower grades. This is a real terms pay cut, as the real rate of inflation, RPI, was 4.9 per cent when the increase was supposed to be implemented in January this year.

Lineside Logistics is a company that distributes parts for Ford's iconic engine plant in Dagenham, East London, which is set to come to a standstill later this month as workers employed by Lineside Logistics take strike action over pay. The 120 plus workers, who are members of Unite, are also responsible for the company's parts distribution network in Turkey and South Africa. The strike is a result of the company making a pay offer of 7.5 per cent at a time when the real inflation rate (RPI) currently stands at 13.5 per cent. This amounts to a substantial real terms pay cut.

Unite regional officer Joe Welch said: "The strike action is set to cause huge disruption across Ford's plants and especially at Dagenham, however this dispute is purely of Lineside Logistics' making. It has had every chance to make a fair pay offer and has chosen not to do so.

The dispute is over a four per cent rise imposed in April 2023, when the real rate of inflation, RPI, was 11.4 per cent – meaning the workers received a significant pay cut in real terms. The dispute has been drawn out because Sanctuary Housing, which has assets of over £5.6 billion, a surplus of £101.3 million and a CEO on £400,000 a year, refuses to recognise unions.

The Unite Union is striking at Mahle Engine Systems over pay discrepancies, with the first strike taking place on May 16th. The dispute relates to an extra pay increase that some workers received instead of applying it to the entire workforce, as well as a 3.4% increase which all workers received from January 2023. The strike action will take place over the following dates: 16th, 18th, 23rd, 25th and 30th May, 1st June. Unite's members overwhelmingly supported strike action with an 81.3% turnout. The trade union can further confirm that its Mahle membership will hold an overtime ban effective from 7am today (15th May) until 14th August.

Control staff delivered an overwhelming mandate for strike action in August, with 100% voting Yes on a turnout of 92%.The dispute centres on the imposed reduction in night-time staffing numbers from the agreed level of 6 to 5; and the introduction of a duty shift system that was never subject to negotiation with the Fire Brigades Union.

But FBU members in Merseyside fire control voted overwhelmingly to reject an offer from employers last week. The offer failed to address some of the issues relating to the proposed duty shift system, and employers refused to even discuss the imposed reduction in night-time staffing numbers.

GMB Union has announced two dates of industrial action by drivers at Movianto, a major healthcare logistics provider to private clients and the NHS.

The strike action is due to take place on Thursday 6 and Tuesday 11 April. Drivers at the company are responsible for transporting essential and often lifesaving medicines, including individual prescriptions and NHS medical supplies.

Security guards from London’s Science Museum, Natural History Museum (NHM) and Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) are planning a day of coordinated strike action to coincide with the start of the Christmas holidays.

The museum workers’ demands include a pay rise to £16 an hour, sick pay from day one, and an additional week of annual leave. They say their sick pay and annual leave demands are already allocated to thousands of workers directly employed by the museums and are what security teams used to receive before they were outsourced in 2011.

Strike action on Wednesday 19 June by around 600 Unite members employed by Nuclear Restoration Services Limited (NRS) at Dounreay nuclear power station has been suspended to allow workers to be balloted on a new pay offer. Unite can confirm that an overtime ban and an end to working voluntary appointments will continue during the ballot process. If the new offer is rejected by the membership, fresh strike action will be announced.

Strikes are set to escalate at Princes Food after the company failed to come back to the negotiating table with an improved offer after Christmas. Industrial action has already taken place at the company's Cardiff factory but strikes at factories across the country will see hundreds of Unite members head to the picket line in January. Factories in Bradford, Wisbech, Long Sutton and Glasgow will see strikes as well as additional walkouts in Cardiff (see notes to editors for dates at each site). Princes Foods make dozens of household name products, such as Branston and Crosse & Blackwell, as well as their own brand tins and jars of meat and fish. The strikes are likely to lead to shortages in supermarkets and shops across the country.

Unite members are taking industrial action after having seen previous pay offers revoked by new owners. Unite’s members, who work as line operatives and engineers, had been offered between a four and seven per cent pay rise dependent on salary by the previous owner, Mitsubishi. The company was subsequently bought by Italian based multinational Newlat S.P.A, which withdrew that offer. Instead, it is offering just a three per cent pay rise.

RMT members in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) have voted overwhelmingly to accept an improved pay offer from the Ministry of Defence, bringing an end to a hard-fought dispute and delivering significant wins on pay and conditions.

• Significant uplifts in salaries and earnings including backpay which goes some of the way to address the suppression of pay over many years.
• Key benefits like travel vouchers and the bonus scheme retained for the duration of the agreement.
• Shorter assignments and better work-life balance.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is a membership organization for pediatricians in the UK and around the world. They play a major role in postgraduate medical education, professional standards, research and policy.

Unite regional officer Matt Freeman said:

"The College can afford to pay workers more. The RCPCH ended the last financial year £2.2 million over budget, increasing reserves from £2.8million to £4.7million."

"Unite members have been Crystalfire clear about what it will take to end this dispute. Even though the College took no action following Unite's response last week, there is still time for management to make a decent pay offer to help workers through the cost of living crisis."

Almost 150 GMB members working at Tata Consumer Products, which makes Tetley Tea in Teesside, have walked out today [Friday] in anger over poverty pay. Tensions were between workers and bosses were further inflamed when management called the police during previous industrial action, claiming the predominantly women strikers were being ‘intimidating’. Police took no action and now the company has launched an injunction against them for trespass.

Unite, the UKs leading union, has today confirmed that its current industrial action at Tata in South Wales has been paused. The decision follows confirmation from Tata, arising from high level talks throughout the weekend, that it was now prepared to enter into negotiations about future investment for its operations and not just redundancies, in South Wales, including at Port Talbot and Llanwern.

GMB members employed in the National Bargaining and Disputes Support Unit (BDSU) gathered outside Unite’s head office in central London today to protest the union’s toxic workplace culture. They voted to walk out after Unite failed to suspend managers accused of bullying and victimised those who spoke out. All members involved in the collective grievance have instead been suspended from work ahead of the strike action.

Sheffield is braced for further bin delivery disruption as refuse workers employed by Veolia escalate to all out indefinite strike action from tomorrow (20 August) in a dispute over union recognition. Nearly 100 refuse workers working out of the Lumley Street depot, who are members of Unite, the UK’s leading union, are angry over Veolia’s refusal to recognise their union. Even though Unite represents around 80 per cent of the depot’s workforce, Veolia is claiming another union, which does not represent the vast majority of workers, is the sole recognised union.

Nearly 100 workers employed by Valley Vets in South Wales are to take the first ever strike action at a private veterinary practice, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today (Tuesday).

Valley Vets has offered its lowest paid staff a derisory pay rise that takes them to slightly above the minimum wage. This is despite 80 per cent reporting that they regularly borrow money to meet basic living costs and five per cent reporting having to use food banks. Meanwhile, higher paid workers have been offered increases of between one and 1.5 per cent from April 2024. The offer is a real terms pay cut as the RPI rate of inflation was 3.3 per cent when deal was due to be implemented.

GMB union has today announced sixteen days of strike action at rail manufacturing giant Vossloh. More than 90 per cent of GMB members rejected a real terms pay cut offered by the company.

Strike action at the Scunthorpe based company will take place on Friday 20 and Friday 27 October with further strike dates commencing from Tuesday 31 October.

Vossloh are a major provider of parts and components for UK Network Rail and strike action will no doubt have a significant impact on the company.

GMB, the union for retail and distribution, has this morning announced that luxury fashion brand Yoox Net-a-Porter will be rocked by twenty-two days of strike action at their Charlton depot.

As previously announced, GMB members are in dispute with their employer about pay, with current proposals leaving members without a pay rise for the first six months of the financial year.

Hundreds of workers are now set to take a total of 22 days of action over November and December, which will affect the distribution of online purchases in the run up to Christmas

The union has been negotiating a pay deal for AB AGRI workers since September. The workers voted in favour of the deal after it was offered to them, with additional benefits including union recognition across the company.

The workers will receive a pay rise of 4.5 per cent back paid from October 2022, plus a 1.5 per cent lump sum. From September 2023, their pay will increase again by an additional 5.5 per cent, with a further 2 per cent in January 2024. An additional day’s annual leave is also included in the deal.

Unite members at AFS, employed as refuellers had been due to walkout for 72 hours on 4 May, potentially grounding as many as 35 airlines. However, after negotiations, AFS has agreed to improve the pension and sick leave offered to new workers to bring them closer in line with existing staff.

Strikes by more than 100 workers employed by Berry Norwich have been cancelled after Unite secured an improved pay deal. The workers voted to accept an above inflation pay deal worth five per cent. The deal also addresses the rates between grades and moves those on the lowest pay up to the next pay band.

The industrial dispute was a result of the company attempting to impose a real terms pay cut on the engineers. However, following extensive talks at the conciliation service Acas earlier this week, a revised pay offer was made, which was worth an average of 13.53 per cent across the engineering bargaining group. Following a meeting of members the offer was accepted and the strikes called off.

This pay victory is a fresh vindication of how Unite’s relentless focus on enhancing jobs, pay and conditions is delivering for members.

Unite the union can confirm that Chivas Brothers has brought forward a new pay offer which will be put to Unite’s 500-strong membership in a consultative ballot.

Unite members previously rejected a 6.4 per cent pay offer by 97 per cent. Inflation stood at 11.3 per cent when the workers’ pay increase should have been implemented.

The offer, secured by Unite, the UK’s leading union, includes a £1,500 consolidated payment across all grades, as well as a £425 non-consolidated payment. In 2024, the workers will also receive a £1,000 consolidated payment across all grades.

The workers were in dispute over significant pay disparities between themselves and colleagues on the London Underground performing the same role. Following negotiations with Transport for London, an improved offer was put forward that helped to substantially close the pay disparity, with some London Trams engineering grades seeing an uplift of up to 20 per cent. The deal, which was accepted in a ballot by the engineers, also resolved long running contractual and holiday pay issues.

Following extensive negotiations with DHL Aviation, the company put forward an improved offer of a four per cent increase to base rates, effective from 1 April 2024. In addition, workers’ skill bandings will increase, which is worth an estimated three to four per cent depending on their role, not including improvements to their shift or weekend premiums.

The latest rises build on an average 9.8 per cent pay increase Unite secured in 2023, resulting in workers’ pay now being on average 18 per cent higher than this time last year.

Unite the union today (10 September) confirmed that its over 500-strong membership at Diageo has voted to accept a one year pay deal successfully negotiated by the union. Diageo workers will receive a wage increase worth around 10.3 per cent for the 3,000 employees based in distilleries and bottling plants across Scotland.

The deal is split into two parts with the first increase of eight per cent running from July until January 2025, and then an increase in real terms worth around 2.3 per cent will top-up the deal until July next year. Unite members at Diageo include: production operators, cask handlers and in distilleries.

Strikes by dNata airline catering contractors at Gatwick have been cancelled after Unite, the UK’s leading union, secured the reinstatement of their shift allowances. The dispute was over dNata’s unilateral removal of a shift allowance for all staff last April, which resulted in workers receiving a pay cut of between £1,500 and £2,000.

Drax Hydro is a subsidiary of the National Grid plc.

Drax power station workers have secured an improved pay offer following strikes that lasted for one day. The offer, which covers workers based in Yorkshire only, amounts to an increase of 16% for the lowest paid workers.

Workers at Lancashire’s ELE Advanced Technologies have secured a 13 per cent pay increase, following successful strike action, Unite the UK’s leading union, announced today. The workers began strike action this week (Wednesday 1 May). After one day of industrial action, ELE Advanced Technologies made an improved offer, which workers were balloted on and accepted. The deal will see 80 engineers receive an additional £3,250 to their annual pay from 1 May 2024, as well as two extra days holiday across the Christmas period.

After negotiations with the Musicians’ Union (MU), the ENO agreed to revise its plans, which triggered the dispute and involved making all of the chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant before re-employing them for six months of the year.

Now the musicians will be rehired as originally proposed, but they will have seven months of guaranteed work, a minimum redundancy payment and “improvements to the proposed contract”.