Displaying items by tag: Unite

Birmingham faces escalating disruption as the Unite union is threatening bin strikes 'beyond Christmas' following the city council’s decision to end negotiations. Bin workers have been on an all-out strike since March, leaving many streets piled with rubbish. Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, condemned the council’s proposals as 'fire and rehire,' accusing leaders of imposing pay cuts of up to £8,000 (a quarter of some workers’ salaries) and forcing staff to choose between lower pay or redundancy. Council leader John Cotton defended the move, citing the authority’s ongoing equal pay liabilities, which have cost hundreds of millions and threaten Birmingham’s financial stability. He stressed the urgent need to reform the city’s waste services to improve efficiency and ensure long-term sustainability, while still offering options like voluntary redundancy and redeployment. Expressing regret over the stalemate, he insisted further concessions would jeopardise essential services and financial recovery. ACAS, the conciliation service, remains open for dialogue. Residents continue to endure the consequences of uncollected waste.

The workers’ union Unite has announced that atomic weapons workers will stage two 48-hour strikes from next Wednesday over what they claim are broken promises over pension cuts. Six hundred staff at the two Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites in Aldermaston and Burghfield, both in Berkshire, will strike for 48 hours from 18 January, and then for another 48-hour period from 30 January. AWE is owned by two US firms and a UK private security firm. The staff, all members of Unite, feel betrayed as the pensions, which they were assured would be ironclad when they were transferred to the private sector, will now be cut. AWE bosses have pledged to close the original scheme and replace it with a new contribution-based version from 31 January. Unite claims that the new scheme would be subject to the unforgiving ebb and flow of the stock exchange.