{"id":24072,"date":"2020-10-05T17:17:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T16:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=24072"},"modified":"2020-10-05T17:17:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T16:17:19","slug":"broken-pay-deal-prompts-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=24072","title":{"rendered":"Broken pay deal prompts strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Workers\u00c2\u00a0paid\u00c2\u00a0below\u00c2\u00a0industry standard at Leeds-based bus manufacturer Optare have voted in favour of strike action over the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0098broken promise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0to provide a\u00c2\u00a0pay increase for 2019 and 2020, Unite said today (Monday 5 October).<\/p>\n<p>Unite said the bus-maker, which is a global leader in the design, manufacture and sale of single and double decker buses for both the UK and global markets, has refused\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0098point-blank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0to honour an August 2019 pledge to implement a pay rise by November of that year.<\/p>\n<p>The union said the company, owned by the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second richest men \u00e2\u20ac\u201c billionaires\u00c2\u00a0Srichand, Gopichand and\u00c2\u00a0Prakash Hinduja \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had left its more than 100 Optare members with no choice but to take strike action after repeatedly postponing planned pay negotiations since November 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Unite members, whose hourly rates are significantly less than those of staff at comparable firms, voted 73 per cent in favour of strike action and industrial action short of a strike at Optare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s factory in Sherburn in Elmet.<\/p>\n<p>A continuous overtime ban will begin on Thursday 15 October and will be followed by a series of 48-hour discontinuous stoppages that will limit production and the number of deliveries accepted (see\u00c2\u00a0below for details).<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe decision to strike is never taken lightly, especially in the current climate, but our members have reached the end of their tether with Optare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s point blank refusal to honour its word,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 commented Unite regional officer Richard Bedford.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOptare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s staff, who are paid well below industry standard,\u00c2\u00a0are loyal and put their all into the company. They are simply asking for a reasonable pay rise and have been pushed into taking this action because of Optare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broken promises.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe situation has been made worse because staff have agreed\u00c2\u00a0to defer pay negotiations on a number of occasions at the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request. Their good faith has been rewarded with the runaround resulting in a complete refusal to provide the promised pay increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is still time to avoid disruption to the business and Unite is calling on Optare to get back around the table to find a solution so that workers can get back to the job of making buses,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discontinuous strike action at Optare will take place on:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>00:01 hours on 15\u00c2\u00a0October 2020, concluding at 23:59 hours on 16\u00c2\u00a0October 2020<\/li>\n<li>00:01 hours on 22<sup>\u00c2\u00a0<\/sup>October 2020, concluding at 23:59 hours on 23\u00c2\u00a0October 2020<\/li>\n<li>00:01 hours on 29<sup>\u00c2\u00a0<\/sup>October 2020, concluding at 23:59 hours on 30<sup>\u00c2\u00a0<\/sup>October 2020<\/li>\n<li>00:01 hours on 5\u00c2\u00a0November 2020, concluding at 23:59 hours on 6 November 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>By Ryan Fletcher <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Workers\u00c2\u00a0paid\u00c2\u00a0below\u00c2\u00a0industry standard at Leeds-based bus manufacturer Optare have voted in favour of strike action over the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0098broken promise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0to provide a\u00c2\u00a0pay increase for 2019 and 2020, Unite said today (Monday 5 October).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[202,55,132],"wps_subtitle":"Unite members at Optare are just not taking bus-maker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broken pay promises","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072"}],"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=24072"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24075,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072\/revisions\/24075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}