TV Licensing Christmas strike
13th December 2011
Hundreds of TV Licensing workers will be on strike in the
run-up to Christmas next week in a long-running dispute over pay.
Capita - the company which has just won an eight year extension
to the TV Licensing contract and makes £1 million profit every
day - has refused to return to negotiations despite a week's
worth of strike action and clear dissatisfaction among its staff. A
pay offer of around 2.6 per cent was robustly rejected by workers,
many of whom earn little more than the minimum wage. The
Communication Workers Union has announced today (Tuesday) dates for
two weeks of further strike action running into the New Year.
CWU national officer Andy Furey said:
"Capita is the classic Scrooge - raking in profits, paying out
massive salaries and bonuses to senior executives and then treading
its low-paid staff into the floor.
"This company makes £1 million profit every day and
has just been awarded an eight-year extension to its BBC TV
Licensing contract; it can afford a decent pay rise for
sta
ff.
"Our members are facing higher food and fuel bills, not to
mention Christmas costs, so a pay offer at half the rate of
inflation is simply a pay cut.
"We're appealing to Capita scrooges to find some Christmas spirit and return to pay talks to give their staff some Christmas cheer. Strike action will continue in the New Year unless Capita bosses change their stubborn stance."
|
Strike dates for "rolling" strikes (different groups of workers out on separate days): |
|
DATE |
WORKPLACE |
TIME |
|
Monday 19th December |
Bristol Mail Room |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Tuesday 20th December |
Bristol Temple Street |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Wednesday 21st December |
Darwen / Glasgow |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Thursday 22nd December |
Field members |
4pm - 9pm |
|
Friday 23rd December |
Bristol, including Mail Room / Darwen (including call centres) |
12:15pm - end of duty |
|
DATE |
WORKPLACE |
TIME |
|
Tuesday 3rd January |
Bristol Temple Street |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Wednesday 4th January |
Bristol Mail Room |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Thursday 5th January |
Bristol, Darwen and Glasgow
|
All day
|
|
Friday 6th January |
Darwen / Glasgow |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
|
Monday 9th January |
Bristol Mail Room |
Commencement of duty - 11am |
Watch footage from previous strike action on CWUTV and browse through the albums covering the strikes on Facebook .
Send messages of support on Twitter to @CWUnews using #capita.
