Year of industrial unrest looms as public sector braces for spending cuts
December 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
Britain is ushering in the new year with the threat of widespread unrest as civil servants, tube drivers and rail workers are poised to ballot on strike action.
After a year of factory occupations, indefinite walkouts, postal misery and the debacle of the strike ballot by 12,000 British Airways cabin crew, there is a sense of heightening industrial militancy.
Now, relations between unions and management look likely to be further tested. The Public and Commercial Services union is set to ballot its 270,000 members this month, threatening disruption at jobcentres, revenue and customs, immigration, the coastguard and other bodies in a dispute over redundancy terms.
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers is threatening to ballot 10,000 London Underground workers over pay. It is also locked in dispute with Network Rail over the future of 1,500 track maintenance jobs. The union has ordered a ballot in the new year for industrial action over compulsory redundancies. General secretary Bob Crow said job cuts were “a reckless gamble with rail safety which would create the perfect conditions for another Hatfield, Paddington, Potters Bar or Grayrigg disaster.”
Meanwhile, 121,000 postal workers, who called off Christmas walkouts but whose strike mandate remains live, are continuing talks with Royal Mail over modernisation plans. As the year progresses, however, experts predict it will be the public sector that bears the jobs brunt…
Read the original article at Guardian