Southampton museum staff strike over pay and hours (From This is Hampshire)
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Southampton museum staff strike over pay and hours
7:20am Monday 6th April 2009 in
ON the day hundreds of Titanic enthusiasts came to Southampton, the city’s maritime museum was shut as council staff went on strike over pay and working hours.
On Saturday, union members formed a picket line outside the museum, near Town Quay, while the City Art Gallery and the Museum of Archaeology also remained closed.
The row is over a demand by the council’s Tory bosses that eight staff at the three attractions work Sundays as part of their contractual hours, rather than as overtime. Under the proposals, they would also no longer receive pay enhancements on Saturdays.
City leisure chief Councillor John Hannides said that the move would save “tens of thousands of pounds” and allow the gallery and museums to remain open seven days a week. Currently, the attractions close on Mondays.
However United union representative Terry Hinton, 55, said: “The council are asking the staff at the museums to work Sundays as part of their contract and give up their pay enhancements on Saturdays as well. That is just too much for our members to accept and the strike is a result of their voting.”
Unite leader Matthew Tipper said that staff had been instructed to work to rule, meaning that the gallery and museums would be shut every Sunday and Monday until the dispute is resolved.
Comments(10)
Tobeblunt
says...
10:15am Mon 6 Apr 09
thedeerhunter270 wrote:Yet they can award PCSO's a council tax free year!
I think public sector workers are going to have to wake up to the realities of the UK economy. If they don't like the conditions, they can go work somewhere else.
Vonnie
says...
11:26am Mon 6 Apr 09
thedeerhunter270 wrote:I think that maybe it is you who needs to wake up. Find out what the issues are - not from the Echo -before you make such wide-sweeping statements.
I think public sector workers are going to have to wake up to the realities of the UK economy. If they don't like the conditions, they can go work somewhere else.
Museum attendants have never taken industrial action before - in this case working to their present contracts - so common sense must tell you that there is more to this than is being reported by the Echo, or being spun by the Council. It didn't blow up overnight as a result of the the "credit crunch". Non-statutory services like museums and heritage, and the front of house workers employed in such services, have been squeezed every year since the 1990's. They are an easy target.
As I have said elsewhere in Echo forums the proposals being put forward, and no doubt will be implemented eventually by force - amount to a weekly wage cut at the lower end of the hourly wages scale for council employees.
SCC is looking to get non statutory services - always the first to be attacked every budget year - even cheaper than before, by making attendants work Sundays and overtime at basic rate. Because there are only a few of them these workers are on a hiding to nothing, but the protest needs to be made.
Condor Man
says...
1:16pm Mon 6 Apr 09
Vonnie
says...
2:38pm Mon 6 Apr 09
Condor Man wrote:What would you sack them for? Keeping to their contracted hours and pay? A contract is between 2 parties.
sack the lot of them, most people have had their pay frozen this year. Typical mob handed approach from washed out union socialists.
Dusty
says...
4:15pm Mon 6 Apr 09
Reality-man
says...
9:38pm Mon 6 Apr 09
Vonnie wrote:Sack them for striking. There's enough unemployed people desperate for work at the moment. If they don't want to do the job or don't like the pay/conditions then get rid of them
Condor Man wrote: sack the lot of them, most people have had their pay frozen this year. Typical mob handed approach from washed out union socialists.What would you sack them for? Keeping to their contracted hours and pay? A contract is between 2 parties.
southy
says...
9:30am Tue 7 Apr 09
Reality-man wrote:and your safe high piad job, could be next, well there be no great loss there plently off people willing to do your job for less money and work more hours.
Vonnie wrote:Sack them for striking. There's enough unemployed people desperate for work at the moment. If they don't want to do the job or don't like the pay/conditions then get rid of them
Condor Man wrote: sack the lot of them, most people have had their pay frozen this year. Typical mob handed approach from washed out union socialists.What would you sack them for? Keeping to their contracted hours and pay? A contract is between 2 parties.
southamptongeordie
says...
9:56am Tue 7 Apr 09
And how much extra they earn for Saturdays and Sundays.
TheAngryConservative
says...
6:20pm Thu 23 Apr 09
TERRIFYING
to the so called ruling classes, I bet they read the great old fool Marx's books each night before they go to bed in their little coucil subsidised flat, and comtemplate the 'revolution'. The dont realise they are just a laughing stock, they are 50 years to late and communism is dead. So what if they go on strike I dont need museums or galleries or even bin collections , I can just burn my rubbish with a few copies of Das Kapital. They think that they can bring the country to its knees but they wont because the counter revolutionaries will teach people how to be self sufficient and ignore these would be marxists.
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thedeerhunter270 says...
9:17am Mon 6 Apr 09
If they don't like the conditions, they can go work somewhere else.