{"id":17432,"date":"2019-02-27T13:21:38","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T13:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=17432"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:57:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:57:12","slug":"lift-engineers-otis-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=17432","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Lift off&#8217; for strike action"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>About 400 lift engineers, employed by Otis Ltd, have pressed the button on six weeks of strike action over the next three months after rejecting \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a paltry pay offer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of 1.5 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite said that this was the first time in 15 years that the engineers had taken strike action and the union warned that such industrial action across the UK will cause \u00e2\u20ac\u0098severe disruption\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to the servicing of lifts and their installation in new buildings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The dispute follows the rejection of a 1.5 per cent pay offer for the year starting June 2018 and plans to withdraw the shift system which, Unite says, will cost its members between \u00c2\u01413,000 and \u00c2\u01414,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strike runs from March\u00c2\u00a013 to 20 and will then be followed by five weeks of strike action. The dates are\u00c2\u00a0 March\u00c2\u00a027 until\u00c2\u00a0 April 3;\u00c2\u00a0 April 10-17;\u00c2\u00a0 April 24-May 1 ;\u00c2\u00a0 May 8-May 15 and\u00c2\u00a0 May 22-29.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe paltry 1.5 per pay offer, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by our members, will lead to six weeks of strike action over the next three months,&#8221; said Unite national officer for engineering Linda McCulloch.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat the Otis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bosses have offered falls well short of what employees at rival lift firms Schindler and Kone were awarded &#8211; 2.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis coupled with the threat to withdraw the current shift system at Otis, worth \u00c2\u01413,000 to \u00c2\u01414,000 a year, was the last straw for our members who have endured years of below inflation pay rises.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe appreciate that six weeks of strikes into early summer will cause severe disruption to Otis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 customers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c lifts will go unserviced on time and the installation of new equipment into buildings under construction will be delayed,&#8221; McCulloch went on to say.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe fact that this is the first strike by the engineers in 15 years should send a clear signal to management that our members mean business and management should sit down with Unite to negotiate a decent pay rise. The ball is very much in Otis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 court.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The engineers voted by 71 per cent for strike action and 88 per cent for industrial action short of a strike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 400 lift engineers, employed by Otis Ltd, have pressed the button on six weeks of strike action over the next three months after rejecting \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a paltry pay offer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of 1.5 per cent. &nbsp; Unite said that this was the first time in 15 years that the engineers had taken strike action and the union [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1124,437,88],"wps_subtitle":"Lift engineers at Otis Ltd to down tools over \u00e2\u20ac\u0098paltry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay offer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25490,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions\/25490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}