‘Get your house in order’ call

Staff at the Bank of England have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in a ballot calling on their employer to give them a decent pay deal. In the industrial action ballot 95 per cent voted for strike action which will be the first strike action at the bank in over 50 years.

Unite has informed The Bank of England that its members working in the maintenance, parlours and security departments will be taking four days of strike action on July 31, and August 1, 2 and 3. If the bank fails to resolve the pay dispute the union will be consulting its members across other departments of the bank as part of the escalation plan.

Unite has today (July 3) called on Mark Carney to “get his own house in order” and personally intervene to settle this long-running dispute for the stake of the stability of the bank and the interests of its committed workforce.

Unite balloted its members working in the maintenance, parlours and security departments in the first part of the dispute which centres on the derisory pay settlement that the bank has imposed upon staff without the agreement of the recognised union Unite.

Angry

Staff are angry that they have been given a below inflation pay offer for the second year running. The result of this pay award is that up to one third of the staff will get no pay rise in 2017 whatsoever.

Unite regional officer Mercedes Sanchez said, “Staff at the Bank of England have made their anger clear by voting for strike action in July. Ninety-five per cent of the staff in maintenance, parlours and security have backed industrial action due to their employers outright refusal to negotiate a fair pay deal for its workforce.

“The Bank of England now faces its first strike action in over 50 years when staff in vital services across the country will be taking action because of the bank’s total refusal to accept that their workforce are struggling to meet their costs of living.

“The result of the bank’s unwillingness to negotiate fair pay will be that the bank’s sites, including the iconic Threadneedle Street in the city of London will effectively be inoperable without the maintenance, parlours and security staff.

‘Shameful’

“Mark Carney needs to get his own house in order. It is nothing short of shameful that the iconic symbol of financial services in the UK is choosing to ride roughshod over the concerns of its dedicated and hardworking staff and impose this derisory pay deal. The governor can no longer turn a blind eye to what is happening on his own patch.

“Unite is calling on The Bank of England to come back to the negotiating table to discuss a fair pay deal for the employees in order to avoid any industrial action. Unite is prepared to talk and to reach a fair settlement.”

The dispute has been caused by the imposition of a one per cent increase in the pay ‘pot’ for the pay year, which commenced in March 2017. The amount that an individual will receive is then decided at the discretion of line managers, so that employees could receive less than one per cent and some will receive no rise at all.