Barnet UNISON members who still work for Barnet Council (excluding community schools) will begin a 24 hour strike action on Monday 2 November
The dispute involves social workers, coach escorts, drivers, occupational therapists, schools catering staff, education welfare officers, library workers, children centre workers, street cleaning & refuse workers, all of whom have made it clear they want to remain employees of Barnet Council and don’t want to be outsourced.
In November 2015 a number of Barnet Council Committees will be making decisions about the future employment of staff working in
·Education and Skills and School Meals
·Adult Social care
·Children’s Centres
This is all part of the wider strategy to reduce the workforce to a small core of commissioners.
Our Picket Lines will be:
·Barnet House from 7 am.
·Mill Hill Depot—Starts 6 am onwards.
·Edgware Library —Start 9 am onwards.
UNISON Branch Secretary John Burgess said:
Our members want to work for the Council, they want to be directly accountable to the residents of Barnet. Our members don’t want to work for an employer which will have to place the shareholders’ legal demands before local residents’ needs. Our members don’t want to work for an employer which uses zero hours contracts. Our members don’t want to work for an employer which will not pay the London Living Wage as a basic minimum. Our members don’t want to work for an employer which won’t allow their colleagues to belong to their Pension Scheme, and our members don’t want to work for an employer which will take jobs out of the borough. That’s why 87% of our members working for the Council voted ‘Yes’ to taking strike action. So far the Council has failed to come close to agreeing to any one of these demands. One of our members has written and produced a music campaign video called “UNISON Army” which pretty much sums up the mood of our members take a look. (see above)