Strikes and lock-outs

Since 31 May teachers in Afghanistan have been on continuous strike to demand that they are properly paid. As Solidarity went to press the teachers had been on strike for two weeks. The strike started in Kabul where it shut as many as 80 schools (the government claim 27) but spread across the country in rolling action affecting 18 out of the 34 provinces. Afghani teachers are the lowest paid public servants and often have to wait months before receiving their salaries due to the government’s permanent financial problems and incompetence. There are 200,000 teachers in Afghanistan and they are...

Following a one-day strike at Lewisham and Southwark College on 4 June, union members report a different atmosphere in the college. The dispute has now broken out of the world of committee meetings and into the classrooms and corridors, canteens and staff rooms. Everybody now has to have a position on the strike, everybody has to think about taking a side. For many staff and students, this is a further political education and a first direct experience of trade union struggle. Managers walk around smiling, trying to convince themselves things are back to normal, that is, closing sites, sacking...

Train drivers for Southern rail will vote on a new pay offer, after they voted by 91% and 95% for strikes and action short of strikes to win a better deal. The strike votes, which saw turnouts of around 85%, followed the rejection of the company's initial pay offer of a 2.65% increase even against the recommendation of officials from the drivers' union ASLEF. Such resounding votes against union recommendations are rare anywhere in the labour movement, and show a clear strength of feeling amongst Southern drivers to win a better deal. Strike plans were suspended, however, after Southern made a...

Rail union RMT has suspended strikes in its campaign for decent pay and job security at Network Rail. Strikes, which involved both RMT and smaller rail union TSSA, were planned for 24-25 May click here for more, but both unions suspended the strikes after Network Rail made a revised pay offer. The new deal, which reduced the length of the agreement from four years to two, offered a 1% increase in the first year, followed by 1.4% in the second, rising to 2.1% if unions agreed to various restructures. However, consultation with Network Rail reps and members in RMT returned overwhelming...

Network Rail workers will strike for 24 hours from 5 pm on Monday 25 May, and will impose a 48-hour overtime ban from midnight on Sunday 24 May, in their campaign over pay and for job security. Members of the RMT union and the TSSA union voted for strikes after workers in both unions rejected Network Rail’s latest pay offer: a £500 non-consolidated payment followed by increases pegged to the Retail Price Index until 2017, with a no compulsory redundancies guarantee withdrawn from 31 December 2016. Network Rail claims it cannot afford a larger pay award, despite reporting £1 billion profits in...

UCU members at Lewisham and Southwark college (LeSoCo) have voted by 85% for strikes over job cuts. At a meeting with the chair of the college governors, union reps made it quite clear that we were going to fight to build a college, not a scrapheap composed of redundant education workers and working-class people denied a further education. Already, more than a hundred students have demonstrated to governors their opposition at a meeting at the Camberwell site. This is only the beginning of a range of actions, on all sites, which will now unfold over the coming weeks. By the last week in June...

Max Watson, London Met Unison branch secretary, spoke to Solidarity The Section 188 redundancy consultation is now over and we are waiting for the results. Management used changes to the law for a shorter, 45 day, consultation, and we got this extended by just a week. It is likely they will make people reapply for their jobs, forcing people to go through the very upsetting process of competing with their colleagues. We’ve fought against job cuts and privatisation, and to defend overseas students before — our members are used to fighting management and are prepared to do so again. We had...

The trade union Poedhn, representing all workers in Greece’s public sector hospitals, has called a 24-hour strike for Wednesday 20 May, with a demonstration at 12.30 outside the Ministry of Health. The hospital workers are demanding money to fund public and free healthcare, staff recruitment, and payment of accrued overtime for doctors and nurses. The role of Syriza’s trade union fraction in the health sector is of pivotal importance. General meetings were called of all Syriza’s healthcare workers between 11 and 15 May and a decision was taken to build and support the strike. Every Syriza...

On Monday 1 June, the Academy orders for the three Lewisham Prendergast schools were rescinded. This is a huge, and well deserved victory for the campaign. Over the past few months teachers' and support staff unions, parents and students have campaigned tirelessly to oppose the academisation of the three schools using strikes, demonstrations, meetings and legal challenges. Strikes planned for 3 and 4 June have been withdrawn. Teachers’ union, NUT, made sure it was prepared in advance, and did not allow time between governors' announcements and strike days which could have demobilised members...

A much needed reminder of the power of organised labour in a rich and advanced economy is currently being demonstrated in Germany. Freight and passenger train drivers for Germany’s Deutsche Bahn recently completed the latest of their strikes over wages and conditions. Their confidence and determination is growing in what is already a 10 month-old dispute. The latest action was the longest strike in the rail operator’s history, lasting for six days and costing German business an estimated £360 million. The wailing of German bosses at that £360 million hit was still echoing around marbled...