Industrial news

The BBC was hit by a one-day strike on 18 February over compulsory redundancies.

Members of the journalists’ NUJ union took action at a variety of BBC sites causing major disruption to programmes across all of the corporation’s networks.

And as Labour Research went to press, 42 BP tanker drivers at the Grangemouth Oil Refinery began a three-day strike on 22 February in a dispute over pay and pensions.

The drivers’ action was in protest at the loss of a share-match scheme — the result of an impending contract transfer from the existing employer BP Oil UK, to another firm, DH.

The drivers’ union, Unite, said that two-thirds of the drivers could lose upwards of £1,400 a year from their basic earnings, while one-third could lose up to £13,000 a year from their pension on retirement.

Elsewhere, hundreds of workers at the Greencore Cake and Desserts plant in Hull took strike action in late January after wages were cut by up to £2,000 a year.

Unite reports that Greencore supplies supermarkets such as Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Transport union RMT is continuing its campaign over cleaners’ pay and conditions, with members working for contractor Churchill on the Tyne and Wear Metro taking further industrial action.

The cleaners were taking strike action from 15 to 22 February, meaning a total of nearly 20 days on strike over the imposition of a pay freeze.

The RMT was also balloting their members working for Churchill on Arriva Trains Wales.