HIGHER EDUCATION STRIKE 31ST OCTOBER 2013

As you’ll be aware UNISON members working in Higher Education have voted to take strike action due to the low pay offer from employers of 1%.  These members have seen their pay cut by 13% over the last 4 years and yet nationally Universities have amassed a surplus of over £1.1 billion!

 

All of the 22 University branches in London will have pickets on entrances to their main campus buildings from 7am; please show your support by attending your nearest university picket line (outside of your working hours); publicise the strike with your members and also send the link below to an online petition calling for Fair Pay in Higher Education.  

 

http://www.fairpayinhe.org.uk/ 

 

For more information on the dispute please visit the UNISON webpageshttp://www.unison.org.uk/at-work/education-services/key-issues/he-pay-dispute/home/

 

University main campus addresses

 

Birkbeck College

University of London

Malet Street

London

WC1E 7HX

 

Brunel University

Kingston Lane

Uxbridge

Middlesex

UB8 3PH

 

City University

Northampton Square

London

EC1V 0HB

 

 

Goldsmiths College

Lewisham Way

London

SE14 6NW

Imperial College

Exhibition Road

London

SW7 2AZ

 

 

Institute of Education

20 Bedford Way

London

WC1H 0AL

 

Kings College London

Strand

London

WC2R 2LS

 

Kingston University

Penrhyn Road

Kingston upon Thames

Surrey

KT1 2EE

 

 

London Metropolitan University

166-220 Holloway Road

London

N7 8DB

 

London School Economics

Houghton Street

London

WC2A 2AE

 

South Bank University

103 Borough Road

London

SE1 0AA

 

 

Middlesex University

The Burroughs

London

NW4 4BT

 

 

Queen Mary & Westfield College

Mile End Road

London

E1 4NS

 

 

Senate House

University of London

Malet Street

London

WC1E 7HU

 

School of Oriental & African Studies

10 Thornhaugh Street

London

WC1H 0XG

 

 

University of West London

Walpole House

18-22 Bond Street

London

W5 5AA

 

University of East London

Stratford Campus

Romford Road

London

E15 4LZ

 

 

University College London

Gower Street

London

WC1E 6BT

 

University of Westminster

115 New Cavendish Street

London

W1W 6UW

 

University of Greenwich

Avery Hill Road

London

SE9 2HB

Firefighters announce further strike dates as government fails to offer firm guarantees

The Fire Brigades Union has announced further firefighters’ strikes on Friday 1 November 18.30-23.00 and Monday 4 November 06.00-08.00 after government and fire employers failed to offer any firm guarantees for firefighters facing ‘no job and no pension’ as a result of pension changes.

Last weekend the FBU postponed a five hour strike after the Westminster government and fire employers shifted their position and finally recognised that firefighters faced losing their jobs and a large chunk of their pensions under new changes imposed in April.

Government and employers had offered various routes to tackle the problem of firefighters not fit enough to work beyond the current retirement age of 55, but this week they informed the FBU they could provide none of the guarantees necessary to address this crucial aspect of the dispute.

Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary said: “The FBU has been very reasonable, but we are now faced with broken promises and those in power evading their responsibilities. The Westminster government has created this mess, but it is refusing to clear it up. It now recognises the problem, but it won’t provide the legal and financial guarantees firefighters need to ensure they have a job and an unreduced pension in the future.

“Firefighters face the sack towards the end of their career and the loss of their pension. That can’t be right. The employers promised to tackle the issue of firefighters facing the sack for failing fitness tests last week, only to say they can’t offer any guarantees this week. That is simply not the way to run a public service.

“The government is now making threats to withdraw some of the other concessions they have made this year. Their own Williams report shows most firefighters cannot work beyond 55. They are trying to bludgeon firefighters into an unworkable pension scheme. We are not prepared to be bullied.

“Firefighters don’t want to go on strike, but we are left with no option when the government and the employers refuse to deal with the problems of their own making.”

In addition, the government is proposing further increases in employee contributions from April 2014. This will mean a third year of contribution increases and will see the majority of firefighters paying around 14.2% of salary towards their pensions – among the highest contributions in the public and private sector.

European health and safety week training day

Safe at Work? Ramazzini versus the attack on health and safety

Safe at Work? Ramazzini versus the attack on health and safety ‘This is an important time to write the history of health and safety in the UK, given the near derision that the term now evokes in the media and from the Government. What Dave Putson demonstrates in writing this book is that health and safety, far from being the product of a more litigious society or the political agenda of overbearing bureaucrats, is rooted in human need, protecting people. This book describes how, over the last 300 years, an evolving body of surveys, research, legal challenges and often tragic experiences led to an emergence of, at first, quite limited protections. Some of these histories will be familiar to the reader, like the match girls and ‘phossy jaw’, but others, like the seminal legal case of Priestley vs Fowler, are not. What the varied and fascinating histories indicate is that health and safety evolved to improve not only the workplace, but also our homes, our communities, our roads, our waterways, and public and environmental health ... Today, there are desperate attempts to reverse those gains. Our Prime Minister echoes the worst of the 19th century’s irresponsible industrialists when he says health and safety is an “albatross around the neck of British businesses”. The burden to take reasonable and practical steps to ensure workers can come home at night is what Cameron objects to when he says he wants to “kill off the health and safety culture for good”. Despite this supposedly rampant culture, the Health and Safety Executive records that, in 2011/12, 173 people died from injuries sustained at work while, according to the Hazards campaign, up to 50,000 die each year from work-related illnesses, including 6,000 from occupational cancers.’ Mark Serwotka General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union