Pickets at Leicester College

Leic College strike suspended after management concessions
Leicester College Lecturers who had been on strike for four weeks in defence of union rights and their conditions have suspended their action.
The strike was a result of the management attempting to impose a contract without negotiations. It was a bitter struggle against a hard faced management who initially refused to talk to the union. In the face of determined strike action the management have made some concessions. However there are still important unresolved issues and the NATFHE branch say they “agreed a limited suspension of the strike for a period of four weeks to see if negotiations could bring a satisfactory settlement.”
Strike committee member, Siobhan Logan said: “Management have shifted significantly on a couple of issues: They’ve agreed to negotiate a contract for all staff and re-introduced a weekly limit of working hours. Members only agreed to a suspension to see how the talks go with management and will come out again if necessary. There is still a terrific mood to fight”
There has been a tremendous amount of solidarity from the movement, including collections for the strike fund. NATFHE say that “strikers are having pay deducted both this month and next so the hardship fund will be needed for at least that period. Once our dispute has reached a successful conclusion, any money left in the fund will be used for other workers in struggle.”
 NATFHE Leicester College Strike Fund. NATFHE Birmingham Office 2nd Floor, Alpha Tower, Suffolk Street, Queensway, Birmingham B1 1TT
Leic College NATFHE website:
www.natfhebranches.org.uk/leicester_coll

Full background and earlier reports are here.

Workers in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) took strike action on Mon and Tues 16 and 17 February. A Leicester Socialist Party member in the PCS union reports from the picket line:

Despite all of the management propaganda that even Goebbels would have been proud of, and the fact that the Union was not allowed to use the e-mail facility to communicate on any matters to do with industrial action the response from members was emphatic. One of the highlights on the second day was 4 casual staff from Charles Street Jobcentre Plus office who went to work on the first day of action decided to stand on the picket line on the second day. They said they didn’t realise that pickets were actually decent people just defending other staff and not the aggressive animals management would have them believe. This was very brave of them as casual staff in DWP can have their contract revoked at any time.
I was told that management stated that only a third of staff stayed away from work on both days. Nobody actually knows where management pluck these figures from but from the picket lines I attended it was clear to see that only minimal staff attended work and these were mainly non-members. There were only 3 out of 80 benefit processors in and none of the offices had any computer support officers. Management had to draft in the scabs from other offices to make sure they could at least open Wellington Street but the service would have been minimal as many of the staff would have been given jobs in which they had no experience like many of the staff who have only been working for the department for 2 weeks who were doing customer service duties on the phones sections.
Hopefully this will send a message to our draconian management that they may have severely slashed official trade union time given to reps, but they won’t break the solidarity shown by our members time and time again on disputes.

On 5 November further education college staff were involved in their first joint national strike. They had been offered a 2.3% pay rise, the lowest in the public sector this year. FE lecturers already earn on average £3,000 less than schoolteachers and support staff are on 15% less than comparable workers in local government. I went down to a Leicester picket line to talk to them.

A good turnout of pickets at Leicester College, Abbey Park Campus resulted in a number of people turning round and not going into work and even asking to join the union on the picket line.

Claire Chester, UNISON, said: "Its the first time I have been in a union that has taken action, and the first time I have been on a picket line. I have enjoyed it, more people should be encouraged to come out and picket. It's good to see different unions taking action together."

Chris Jordan, a technician and UNISON member said: "I remember 12 years ago getting more than I do today, and I'm still in the same job! Yet the people at the top seem to be getting fatter. No wonder staff have become demoralised"

One NATFHE member said: "Discontent has been building up for years, a bit like with the fire-fighters, and it's only now coming out. I do the same job as a teacher in a school, why don't I get the same pay?"