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”.

A rally held at East Sussex College last Thursday evening by Hastings & District Trades Union Council under
the slogan Hastings Demands Better attracted a cast of prominent local speakers, including borough council leader Paul Barnett, local foodbank manager John Wales, debt centre manager Nick Warren and several union officials. The event was a precursor to an intended mass rally to be held in London on 18 June to demand an effective response from government to the rise in the cost of living.

Chair for the evening, Sam Gurney, who is Regional Secretary of the TUC, urged all people protesting and campaigning against austerity and poverty to make a common front. “None of them can win on their own”, he told the assembly. “These meetings… are about all of us – trade unions, community groups, charities and local politicians – coming together to deal with this government.”

In contrast to his emollient address to the cross-party council meeting the previous evening Cllr Barnett declared the issue to be “a class war”, invoked Robert Tressell, Ricky Tomlinson and Jeremy Corbyn, and pledged that he would fight to win “a better deal for the people of Hastings”.

Wales told the meeting that, people were more likely to die in Hastings now from lack of food and heating than they are from drink or drugs. The Government’s belated action (announced that day) in helping people with energy bills was welcome – “but it’s not enough, and it’s not over”.

Speakers from the RMT, GMB, PCS, NEU, Unite and Unison unions all urged support for collective action, local or national. Diane Ebanks of PCS said: “Those things we do have, we have because previous generations of workers struggled for them. We get what we need only by coming together and demanding. This is not identity politics. This is class struggle, and we need to win it.”

At a meeting to be held via Zoom next Tuesday evening, 18 January, local union leaders, including from Unison, which represents health and local government workers, and from the RMT, the rail union, will call for “unity and solidarity” in support of:

• A minimum of 7% uplift in pay which they say is “in line with inflation”;

• A national minimum wage of £15 per hour;

• An increase in statutory sick pay to £346 per week with removal of the lower earnings limit.

This call comes as individual unions are already girding themselves for industrial action.

Union ballots

Unite union, which has 70,000 local government members across the country, has described a 1.75 % pay offer (2.75% for those on the lowest pay) made by the Local Government Association for the current year as “insulting”. In a vote conducted in October 2021, 81% of members rejected it, with 69% confirming they were “supportive” of taking industrial action.

Unison’s ballot on the same offer has been taking place over the past month and is due to close today (Friday). Meanwhile, 77% of its health service members have already voted ‘yes’ in a ballot in favour of “sustained action over pay”.

The RMT last week launched its own ballot in support of strike action for rises in both standard pay and sick pay for train cleaners. 

Refuse workers in Eastbourne, who are members of the GMB, took strike action on New Year’s Eve,
7 and 10 January – further days are due to be announced. 

New Year message

The local Trades Union Council describes its purpose as to promote effective solidarity in disputes, joint campaigns, and increase trade union membership and activity. It has posted what it called “a New Year message of hope for the people of Hastings & St Leonards” from its secretary Jonathan Lee and chair Simon Hester: “We are on your side in opposing the Government’s divisive policies which are causing rising inequality in our country. We understand the real heroes of the Covid 19 pandemic are the working people who keep our country going, and not the mates of Johnson and his cabinet. All workers and trade unionists who want to discuss the fightback are welcome. Let’s make 2022 the year that workers achieve pay justice.

“Hastings and St Leonards needs a pay rise!”

It is undeniable that, across the economy, inflation has taken hold over recent months in a way not seen since the early 1990s. The Consumer Prices Index issued by the Office for National Statistics last month calculated inflation in the cost of living at 4.6 % over the 12 months to November, up from 3.8% in October. A recent posting on the Bank of England website headed Will inflation in the UK keep rising? admits that many prices have risen sharply as a result of supply chain problems brought about by the Covid pandemic, and notes substantial increases in energy (oil and gas) costs. Inflation, the Bank predicts, “will reach about 6% by spring 2022. But we expect it to start to come down after that.” 

“Double whammy”

Mr Lee isn’t assuaged. “Workers in Hastings and St Leonards are feeling the pinch”, he says. “The cost of all key essentials have been going up – food, energy, petrol, rents – and is set to rise even further. In April we will all be hit with a double whammy. Energy costs, especially gas, are predicted to jump by 45-50%. National Insurance contributions will go up from 12% to 13.25%, nearly a 10% increase in contributions. In reality, this is an increase in income tax which disproportionately affects working people, especially the low paid.

“And for the major employment sectors in Hastings and St Leonards, care homes and hospitality, income is typically at minimum wage levels.

“Any pay rise less than 7.1% is a pay cut, in real terms. This is why Hastings & District Trades Union Council is calling on all workers to put in substantial pay claims in the coming weeks and months. We fully expect workers and their unions to prepare for industrial action to keep up with inflation. When workers stand up for themselves we will be there in full support with practical solidarity.”

“Least generous in Europe”

The Union Council’s call for a concomitant rise in sick pay is based on research released by the TUC last month claiming that the UK has the least generous statutory sick pay in Europe, worth just £96.35 per week, and that it is only available to employees earning £120 per week or more, leaving around a third of workers – over 10 million people – with sick pay that is too low to meet basic living costs, or with no sick pay at all.

Inequalities in pay and conditions have, it is maintained, been highlighted by the pandemic. “The richest people in Britain are getting richer”, Mr Lee argues. “There are more millionaires and billionaires than ever. During the pandemic the richest 1% saw their collective income increase every day by £390 million.

“We all know who the essential workers are, the people who were in the front line and kept this country going. Typically, they are the low paid. And Covid death rates amongst the essential workers were massively disproportionate, especially in the caring and health professions, transport, logistics and retail.”

• All workers and trade unionists “who want to discuss the fightback” are invited to the Union Council Zoom meeting on 18 January, starting at 7.00pm. For the Zoom link, email Jonathan Lee at hastingstuc@outlook.com

Ambulances repossessed, more ambulances blockaded by a horse box, mobile phones out of credit and staff unpaid – that’s the shocking state of a patient transport service run by a private company since April.

UNISON has been made aware that the private company (VM Langfords), a sub-contractor of Coperforma who run the PTS Service for Sussex, has gone into receivership.

Three of their six ambulances have been repossessed by bailiffs, whilst the other three were blockaded by the owner of the land where they are kept, as Langfords have not paid the rent.

Bailiffs turned up at Worthing, Bognor and Alton base locations and repossessed the 3 ambulances. At the same time the owner of the land used to store the other vehicles used farm vehicles and a horse box to block in the other 3 ambulances. This meant that when staff turned up for work they were unable to take the ambulances out.

On Wednesday 24 February, UCU (University College Union) and Unison pickets were joined by Hasting Solidarity at Sussex Coast College Hastings in a strike for fairer wages. The joint union strike, the first in over a decade, came after a 2:1 ballot majority and demands a raise of £1 per hour for all college workers across the country.

The strike resulted from a 0% ‘pay offer’ from employers. Sussex Coast College, the Local College for Hastings and Rye, has in the last 6 years, only given a below-inflation 1% standard of living pay ‘rise’– in real terms almost a 20% cut. This means staff are now working 5 days on 4 days’ money while their workload continually increases.

“A deprived area shouldn’t mean a deprived  education”

The average lecturer’s pay at Sussex Coast College Hastings is £26,900, half of the college’s staff are paid less than  £23k and 33% of the curriculum is taught by teachers paid less than £19k. Sussex Coast College Hastings is rated 159th out of 181 for ‘best paid’ Further Education colleges in the UK.

The College has seen an increasing polarisation between the lowest paid and the highest paid workers with the top 9 earners earning the same as the bottom 40 out of a total of 389 staff, the difference between the top 9 people’s average salary and the college’s average is £40k.

“This year the Association of Colleges offered 0% and have stated they do not consider negotiations to change their mind. We have offered the college an opportunity to value its staff and community by negotiating a local pay claim and work load offer. It would be foolish of the college to not accept this offer to reduce the already impacted delivery of education to the young people of Hastings. The cuts imposed on Further Education, and education in general, have undermined the very institutions that can deliver the governments pledges and offer the people of Hastings a brighter future.

What the staff of the college need is to feel respected and valued, rather than exploited and treated like cattle where their work is under valued. Therefore by actually coming around the table and talking Sussex Coast College will indeed fulfil its mission statement of inspiring futures and changing lives of its best asset, its staff. It not just the building that makes the college, but what goes on inside those four walls. So any former, current or future student, their families, friends and ex teachers should help prove it is the people that make the college by signing the petition and sending messages of solidarity and support the people listed.”

Elected Branch Secretary for the Sussex Coast College Branch of UCU

Support our teachers and sign the petition here.