Health and Safety, Low pay/minimum wages, Procurement, U.K.

The UNISON trade union has secured upgrading and back pay for 60 healthcare assistants employed in accident and emergency services at the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust in North East England. This is part of the union’s national campaign to secure the appropriate grading for workers on band two of the national pay scale, but who have been undertaking clinical duties falling under band three. In this case the workers are set to receive around £3,000 (€3.500 in back pay). Managers at the Trust have also agreed to enter negotiations with UNISON in the new year aimed at re

Many social care workers in Wales are set to get pay increases of around 11% following the decision of the Welsh government to guarantee an hourly rate of £9.90 (€13.15) from next April. The rate is the real living wage as calculated by independent research and is above the current national minimum wage of £8.91 (€11.85) per hour which many social care workers are paid. Public service unions UNISON and GMB welcomed the announcement as a first step in delivering better pay and conditions for care workers but both are call for further increases with the GMB setting a target of £15 (€17.65 ) an

The PCS public and commercial services union reports strong support for its second round of strike action at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority in South Wales. Other unions and Labour MPs have backed the action which aims to secure improved health and safety provision at a workplace that has seen some of the highest rates of COVID infections anywhere in the country. Meanwhile the union is also celebrating a positive result from strike action taken by its members working in the court service but employed by the OCS multinational. They secured a new two-year agreement backdated to April

Members of the PCS civil service union at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) in Swansea, South Wales, have agreed to take another four days of strike action from 4-7 May. This follows the four-day action on 6-9 April that the union says was strongly supported. PCS is concerned that DVLA management have failed to take action to address safety concerns following very high levels of COVID-19 infections at the site where 4000 workers are employed. The union has also argued about the level of continuing risk involved from allowing 2000 workers to carry on working at the site.

Over 1400 workers, members of the PCS civil service union, took strike action from 6-9 April in protest at the failure to address safety issues at the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea in South Wales. Over 600 DVLA employees have tested positive for COVID since last September with no effective response from management or the Department of Transport (DoT). Following the strike the union has called for immediate talks to resume with the DoT and will be discussing next steps with members.

Public service trade unions have reacted angrily over the government decision to freeze pay for millions of public sector workers, including municipal employees, care workers, civil servants and teachers. Health workers are excluded from the “pay pause” as the chancellor (finance minister) calls it and there will be a GBP 250 (EUR 278) increase for workers paid less than GBP 24000 (EUR 26730) a year. The unions have attacked the decision as a “divide and rule” tactic and argue that many public service workers have yet to see their pay levels recover in real terms after the last bout of

UNISON, GMB and Unite, the trade unions representing non-teaching staff, have joined with teaching unions in setting out their pay claim for colleges of further education. The unions are calling for a significant move towards the full restoration of pay levels to where they would be had college pay kept pace with inflation since 2009. They also want to see the living wage, as calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, to be the minimum wage in the sector, with all colleges in England becoming accredited living wage employers with the Foundation. The unions also want all contracted-out services

Public service union UNISON has won a major legal victory for 10 home care workers who are set to share £100000 (EUR 109000) in compensation for underpayment of wages. The case involves the failure of private contractors to pay to cover travelling time between jobs. It could have major implications for other home care workers and UNISON is calling on the government to act to outlaw the practice. Effectively, some of the workers were being paid less than half the minimum wage by being denied payment for travel time - an essential part of their work as home care staff - with some working as long

Seven trade union organisations have called on the government to urgently address the critical lack of personal protective equipment in health and social care. The unions also raise serious concerns about the threats of disciplinary action against workers who refuse to work in dangerous situations or who want to talk publicly about the lack of equipment. They want the government to work with the unions to tackle the crisis and to do this it needs to guarantee transparency on procurement, distribution, timescales and exactly how and when workers can expect to get the protection they need and

The three main unions in local government - Unison, Unite and GMB - have rejected a 2% pay rise as a wholly inadequate offer from the employers. The unions have submitted a joint pay claim that aims to provide some redress for years of pay freezes and below-inflation increases. These have left local government workers some 22% worse off in real terms. The aim is for a new minimum rate of GBP 10 (EUR 12) per hour and a 10% increase for all workers.