National Gallery staff plan all-out strike

At the beginning of last week (10 August) workers at the National Gallery in central London began an all-out strike against the privatisation of visitor services. The union has been calling for negotiations to avoid the privatisation and had hoped to have talks with the Gallery's new director before he took office. The union is also campaigning for the reinstatement of a leading shop steward, illegally sacked, the union believes for her trade union activity. [Read more at > PCS->http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/news_centre/news_centre.cfm/continuous-strike-greets-new-national-gallery

Teachers, childcare workers and school administrative and other staff began an all-out strike on 8 April following three weeks of negotiations with the government over pay. The negotiations also came after a three-year campaign of demonstrations and protests over low pay in the sector affecting both teachers and other school staff. With the government refusing to come up with a decent pay offer, support for strike action was very high, registering 80%-90% in some areas. The action comes at a time when other groups of public service workers are either taking strike action or pushing for higher

Members of the PCS civil service union are continuing their industrial action against privatisation of staff at the National Gallery in central London. Around 400 of the 600 workers at the gallery are under threat of outsourcing and are in the middle of a 10-day action which takes their total number of days on strike to 45. The issue of privatisation is being debated in parliament and the union is approaching the new director of the Gallery to try to resolve the dispute. An employment tribunal has ordered the reinstatement of a PCS rep who was sacked but management at the Gallery have refused