Benefit staff stay solid BENEFIT workers in Birmingham are still out on strike after 14 weeks. A month ago the Labour council instructed Councillor Bill Gray to try and negotiate a settlement.
These talks have been tedious and slow. However on June 30 the negotiators excelled themselves by making a derisory offer which will only benefit 37 out of the 300 staff. A large members' meeting of UNISON unanimously rejected this offer.
in fact none of this is new money and at best could only RMT Southern be seen to be a three and a District Secretary half per cent increase for a limited period. Many staff would be taking a wage cut. The RMT signalworkers However much this gails strike has been 100 per the RMT bureaucracy even cent successful in terms of they can't stomach this offenRMT members called out. sive offer. The only way trains have The General Grades comrun has been by pressure mittee agreed to extend the being applied to supervi- dispute by instigating a special strike fund, organising a sors and managers to work rally and demonstration, prothe signal boxes. ducing a leaflet for mass disIn many cases this has tribution to the public and on meant the service being run Monday 4 July will discuss by people who are not prop- further action which will inerly trained in their operation. clude moving to two days of The RMT has raised the strike action per week - probmatter with the Health and ably Tuesday and Thursday. Safety Executive who have so far ignored them. Green light The union has decided to ballot supervisors in response That the dispute has got to the unreasonable pressure this far is to the credit of the being applied on them to do left in the union. These decithis work. sions now give the green light for the broader labour moveLies ment to build solidarity and what we want to see now is Railtrack have continually the formation of support comlied about what's on offer in mittees to help get the mesthe negotiations. The public sage across, to raise money perception of Railtrack incom- for the strike fund and to build petence is actually part of a the demonstration. deliberate strategy to con- The government has chofuse. sen this dispute as the fight to In the last round of negotia- have over the pay freeze and tions Railtrack purported to the labour movement must do be offering a six per cent everything it can to ensure award worth over £4 million the signal workers win.
filling in the pit shafts. Once the OFFICIAL PICKET OFFICIAL PICKET UNISON UNISON UNISON PEFEND U - 058 DORDIN OFFICIAL! KENER TES staff have rejected sell-out deal