At a record breaking live stream with over 7,000 members, the Communication Workers’ Union leadership announced that talks with the management of BT Group (BT, EE and Openreach) had broken down, and that they now intend to initiate a national ballot for industrial action.
The pitiful submission by the Tories of a 1% increase for all NHS staff to the Pay Review Board is a huge kick in the teeth to all those frontline workers. The government’s hypocritical excuse for the award is that they cannot afford it. This jaw dropping assertion has left even media commentators agog at the Tories’ complete underestimation of the mood in the workplace and the wider public. As soon as the information was made public on March 6th, nurses’ social media posts began to hum with fury and rage, as well as understandable despair. Sunak had just delivered a budget which had committed to spend another £65bn in the next 4 months and then claimed there was no money left!
GMB’s industrial dispute at British Gas continues with engineers braving all weather in their fight to protect hard won terms and conditions. With massive public support, thousands of members have already taken 16 strike days against their bullying employer Centrica. The next round of industrial action began this morning with the launch of a four-day strike, and more are in the pipeline.
Amazon has decided to set up shop in Ireland. It plans to create a new ‘fulfilment centre’ at a 650,000sq ft unit in Baldonnell. The purported reasoning behind this is to avoid delays on the delivery of products and new taxes resulting from Brexit, which have added 40% to the cost of some products. The new warehouse would mean Amazon orders in Ireland would be picked and packed in Ireland, rather than in the UK.
