By Bob Wade, NUJ member
As all eyes focus on the medical response to COVID-19, you can be forgiven for missing the growing guerrilla warfare underway on the shop floor, as a new generation of trade unionists tackle pay cuts, furlough and working from home.
A family relative is a case in point. In her twenties, she has always been active against wider issues of anti-racism and climate change, but thought trade unions were something out of the 1970s. Working in Social Services for a local authority that should know better, while management and social workers had been allowed to work from home, the ‘Access’ workers were told to stay in the workplace.
As it is mainly telephone work, taking calls from vulnerable people looking to access social services, the relative argued that with the right equipment, this could be done from home. The response was that they could, but they would have to buy the equipment themselves!
The relative’s flat mate then took ill, so she had to self-isolate – hey presto, management turned up with the equipment so she could work from home! But they have now given her a return date – so the battle is now on, having proved WFH was possible, and with the equipment now miraculously appearing, to get all the Access workers safely working from home.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
There were similar tales at my branch meeting of the National Union of Journalists: I should explain to international readers that in the UK media industry, ‘chapels’ are workplace union branches, and ‘Mothers’ or ‘Fathers of Chapel’ are the union reps.
It was the largest meeting we have had for some time (on Zoom of course),
and beside us ‘usual suspects’, there were young faces from the shop floor for the first time in many years.
I won’t name the media organisations, as negotiations in many cases are still on going, but in terms of employers, it’s definitely a case of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
All NUJ members understood the problems their employers are facing, so have been co-operative but want safeguards. And it is clear that where Chapels are strong, the workers get a better deal.
Through proper negotiation, one major company has agreed a rolling furlough for three week periods only – three weeks at work, three weeks on furlough: all employees will be paid 90 per cent of their wages, and those on furlough, getting 80 per cent of their wage from the government, will be topped up with the other 10 per cent by the company. In agreeing the scheme, the company’s executives magnanimously announced they would only take 80 per cent of their wage; there is a little cynicism about this, as rumour has it that on 27 March, just a week before, they had a major share windfall.
Union activist victimised
But the rolling furlough should be fought for by others, as in other companies it is being used to victimise union activists. At one major daily newspaper, the Mother of the Chapel – a health correspondent with obviously a lot to report on – was the first to be furloughed, while only one of the mainly non-union Sports Desk was chosen, when there are no sports to report!
In another major local newspaper chain, the members have agreed to a pay cut – but only for three months, and then they will review it again.
Our Regional full time Official said that the Chapels across the country were being “re-energised” and recruitment to the union is increasing.
Workers are realising there is no more escape from aggressive management – it is understandable after years of short-term or zero-hour contracts, that people have kept their heads down: COVID-19 is a matter of life and death and we all have no alternative but raise our heads above the parapet and fight.
April 11, 2020
