Wintry and Discontented
As truly wintry conditions swept into Kent and East Sussex this week, trade unions with substantial local membership announced further industrial action in support of better pay and working conditions.
At the time of going to press, local nurses and ambulance workers were still threatening to go on strike; railway services, already disrupted by heavy snowfalls on Sunday and Monday, were being crippled by walk-outs of staff belonging to the RMT union; the Christmas post was becoming severely backlogged as CWU postal workers refused to clock on.
Paramedics, Emergency Care Assistants, call handlers and other staff employed by the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAMB) and represented by the GMB union are due to down tools next Wednesday 21 December and the following Wednesday 28th. GMB National Secretary Rachel Harrison said last week: “This is as much about unsafe staffing levels and patient safety as it is about pay. A third of GMB ambulance workers think delays they’ve been involved with have led to the death of a patient.”
CREDIT: Dave Young
Now another set of public service workers has declared their discontent with what they see as a wholly inadequate pay offer in the face of soaring household bills and inflation: the staff of the Environment Agency (EA). From Monday of this week, hundreds employed across the South-east who are members of the UNISON union started a ”work to rule” regime, meaning that they will work only their minimum contracted hours, and refuse any overtime or “on call” cover. According to the union, the EA depends upon the goodwill of workers to step forward to handle unexpected incidents, such as the damage and disruption brought by snow and ice. For several days – in particular over Christmas and again either side of New Year – they will refuse to do so.
As in the case of health provision, UNISON argues that low pay isn’t just a poor reward for workers’ contributions to vital services. The union’s head of environment Donna Rowe-Merriman said: “Staff are proud to play a vital role in keeping communities safe, but feel constantly taken for granted by a government that has persistently failed to invest in the Environment Agency.
“Wages there have been held down for years, prompting many experienced workers to quit for better paid work elsewhere. But as more leave, the pressures increase on those staff left behind. And so it goes on”.
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