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From The Socialist newspaper, 26 January 2022
Strike action by Carmarthenshire winter gritters wins concessions from council
Socialist Party and Socialist Students members on the picket line, photo Swansea and West Wales Socialist Party (Click to enlarge)
Socialist Party Wales
Winter gritters working for Carmarthenshire County Council have won big concessions from the council which will now have to adhere to an agreement to pay decent shift allowances that it has been trying to cut back.
Members of GMB, Unison and Unite unions have taken three nights of strike action and operated nine picket lines in a dispute caused by the council's refusal to adhere to a two-year old agreement. Clearly, the council realised it could not maintain a winter gritting service without the workers, so has been forced to concede. A Unison spokesperson said: "It will not be lost on those involved that three nights of action achieved far more than two years of negotiations."
The council offer, which will be taken back to the members to vote on, is to pay the gritters £25 per shift (an increase of £8) if they are retained for winter gritting on a weekday. On the weekend, when a shift is longer, the employer will pay £40 per shift. On top of this, workers will get the agreed overtime rate.
The dispute was also a model of how three unions could work in partnership to take coordinated action that forced an intransigent employer to back down.
The well-supported picket lines clearly had an impact on the council. Unison Carmarthenshire said: "While it was the action of members that forced the council to concede to our demands in the main, the good turnout on the picket lines was also a crucial factor. We would like to thank other members, Swansea Trades Council (to whom our branch is affiliated), Rob James, Labour opposition group leader of Carmarthenshire County Council, and Socialist Students and Socialist Party members for showing solidarity and support by attending our picket lines."
Unison also criticised Hazel Evans, the Plaid council cabinet member for environmental services, who attacked the unions in the press but refused to meet union representatives to resolve the dispute.
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In The Socialist 26 January 2022:
What we think
We need a workers' alternative to big business Tories and Labour
News
Lords reject parts of anti-protest bill
Social care providers put profit before residents' needs - nationalise care now
Cost of living
Trade unions and the cuts
Trade unions and the fight against council cuts
Workplace news
Sheffield Just Eat strikers step up action and hold mass rally
Oaks Park School: valiant strike exposed state of schools
Education: Workload and inflation goes up, incomes fall
DWP reps demand action from PCS leadership
10,000 tube workers vote to strike - don't make workers pay for TfL funding crisis
Strike action by Carmarthenshire winter gritters wins concessions from council
Universities: Strike action at 68 in two disputes
Worksop Wincanton logistics workers begin ninth week of strike action
International news
Trade unionists in the USA fighting back
Campaigns news
Hundreds protest to save St Mary's Leisure Centre in Southampton
Wakefield TUSC - Fighting for low-paid workers and NHS
Eviction resistance on the march in Waltham Forest
This is students' chance to fight back - help build 2 March NUS walkout
Environment
Britain's waterways choked with a 'chemical cocktail'
Readers' opinion
War in Yemen, made in Harlow, profit for rich
UK Covid-19 mortality similar to Spanish Flu
It's my party, and I'll lie if I want to
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