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1. Coventry bin strikes set to continue until summer

The long-running Coventry bin strike is poised to continue into the summer as the striking HGV drivers prepare to re-ballot to renew the mandate for industrial action.

Strikes began early this year and the 70 HGV drivers have been on all out strike since 31 January in the dispute over low pay. The workers’ basic rate of pay begins at just £22,183 per annum, which is far below what workers receive in the private sector and well below pay rates of neighbouring councils.

The current strikes are due to end on Thursday 24 March, but should the workers vote for renewed strike action the strikes will run through the spring, including during the local elections in May, when 18 of Coventry’s councillors will be elected.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Our members are simply seeking a fair day’s pay but the Labour council continues to make excuses about why it can’t pay the rate for the job.

2. Northampton faces bin strike after GMB refuse workers ‘hung out to dry’

Northampton town faces a bin strike after refuse workers were ‘hung out to dry’ with a massive real terms pay cut.

More than 70 GMB refuse collectors working for Veolia have turned down a pay offer of just 2.5 per cent – despite inflation running at a 7.8 per cent.

Workers are ‘furious’ because the council – ultimately responsible for bin collections – have increased Veolia’s funding by 5.5 per cent, but the company are refusing to pass that on to workers.

The strike ballot will open in the next few days, and any industrial action could affect up to 94,500 homes.

Stuart Richards, GMB Senior Organiser, said: “Northampton’s refuse collectors are furious. 

“The council have given Veolia a huge increase in funding to help ease their inflation worries and they’ve pocketed it instead of passing it on to workers.”

3. Tory power grab on Holyrood laid bare

The SNP has said the damning conclusions of a Holyrood committee inquiry into Westminster’s Internal Market Act lays bare the Tories ‘blatant power grab’ on the devolution settlement, ahead of a debate in The Scottish Parliament today.

The Act has been widely criticised by politicians from every party, other than the Tories, with the Labour First Minister of Wales calling it ‘a smash and grab’ on the devolution settlement

Commenting SNP committee member, Alasdair Allan MSP said: “The Tories’ disrespect for democracy in Scotland is glaringly obvious which is not hard to believe given we have a Prime Minister who has branded devolution as “a disaster”.

“This Internal Market Act is a blatant power grab on Holyrood – using something Scotland overwhelmingly voted against, Brexit, to undermine something Scotland overwhelmingly voted for, devolution.”

4. Plaid Cymru MP urges PM to waive all visa rules for Ukrainians

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, today renewed calls on the Prime Minister to waive all visa rules for Ukrainians after she told the House of Commons that 173 Ukrainian staff of the British International School are stuck in Kyiv and Dnipro.

A constituent employed by the school wrote to the Dwyfor Meirionnydd MP urging the UK Government to waive visa rules for Ukrainians, in line with measures taken by European Union countries.

The school, which has campuses in the capital Kyiv and the eastern city of Dnipro, employs around 60 British citizens, most of whom were able to escape in a school bus over the weekend.

However, the school also employs 173 Ukrainian colleagues who are unable to leave due to a lack of a humanitarian corridor. They are ineligible for the humanitarian sponsorship pathway announced by the Home Secretary yesterday, due to the school being domiciled in Ukraine.

5. Moderna condemned for ‘eye-watering’ profits from publicly-funded vaccine

Campaigners have slammed the news that US vaccine maker Moderna made $13.2 billion of pre-tax profits on revenues of $18.5 billion in 2021.

Tim Bierley, pharma campaigner at Global Justice Now said: “Today’s results show Moderna has perfected the dubious art of converting huge amounts of public funding into eye-watering profits – to the tune of $36 million a day. This vaccine was invented with US government scientists, developed and trialled with taxpayer funds, and finally purchased with public money. A 70% profit margin is what you’d expect to see on a designer handbag, not an essential medicine.”

6. Sainsbury’s facing spring shortages as low paid DHL workers ballot for strikes

Over 250 warehouse workers employed by DHL on the outsourced Sainsbury’s contract are to be balloted for strike action in a dispute over low pay.

The workers, who are members of Unite are based at the distribution centre in Emerald Park in Bristol. The distribution centre supplies Sainsbury’s stores throughout South West England and as far as west Wales.

The workers are on three separate contracts resulting in them being paid different rates for undertaking the same job. The lowest paid is on £11.22 an hour. Unite is seeking an increase of at least £1.70 an hour on basic rates of pay, a 13 per cent increase for the lowest paid.

7. Barts Trust NHS workers demand end to outsourcing     

NHS healthcare workers at Barts Health NHS Trust delivered an open letter to Dame Alwen Williams DBE, head of Barts Trust, demanding equal treatment for the striking outsourced cleaners, porters, security, catering and reception staff across St Barts, Royal London Hospital, and Whipps Cross.

The signatories are urging the trust to bring these workers back in-house as NHS employees on equal terms and conditions to other staff, rather than continuing to leave them battling against exploitation by outsourcing giant Serco. The open letter is part of “Barts Health NHS Workers Against Outsourcing”, a new campaign by NHS healthcare workers supported by Medact demanding an immediate end to outsourcing.

The signatories say in the letter: “We all work for Barts Health and we all deserve equal treatment. We are all one team supporting the NHS, and we should all be employed by the NHS.”

8. End cruel benefit cap amidst Tory cost-of-living crisis, say SNP

The SNP has ramped up pressure on the Department for Work and Pensions to end the cruel benefit cap – which is pushing families into poverty and hardship – as the Tory cost-of-living crisis continues.

The party’s Work and Pensions spokesperson David Linden MP lead a debate in the House of Commons calling on the UK government to end the benefit cap, which disproportionately impacts lone parent families – the majority of whom are women – as well as larger families, and ethnic minority families.

Commenting, David Linden MP said: “Ever since its introduction in 2013, the benefit cap has limited the support that some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies receive.

“Because of it many families are facing a grim reality of having to choose between heating or eating.”

9. Government plans will make it harder for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university, Greens warn

The Green Party has strongly criticised Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi’s announcement of the Government’s response to the Augar Review of higher education.

Young Greens co-chair Jane Baston said: “It is scandalous that the Government will make it much harder for students from working class and disadvantaged backgrounds to enter universities, further entrenching the inequalities and marketisation within higher education.

“The minimum entry requirements and restrictions on student loans that the government is introducing will disproportionately impact those who do not come from a privileged background. Behind these changes is a deeply regressive vision of education that rewards those with access to private tuition and penalises those who do not fit the Conservative ideology.”

10. Unite to stage targeted industrial action as council workers express disgust at 1.75% pay offer

Unite’s local government members will stage targeted industrial action at councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in March, after rejecting a 1.75 per cent pay offer in a ballot of more than 300 local authorities.

More than 80 per cent of Unite’s 70,000 members, who voted in nearly 400 separate ballots, were in favour of industrial action over the 1.75 per cent offer made by the Local Government Association (with 2.75 per cent for those on the bottom pay point) for 2021/22.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Our members helped keep public services running during the pandemic, holding our communities together at a time of national emergency.

“Unite’s message to the Local Government Employers is your offer is completely unacceptable, think again and put a proper pay rise to our members.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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