{"id":9436,"date":"2016-08-03T16:49:01","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T15:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9436"},"modified":"2016-08-04T12:06:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T11:06:51","slug":"strike-days-dip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9436","title":{"rendered":"Strike days dip"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The number of workers who took strike action last year dipped to their lowest level in recorded history, figures published yesterday (August 2) have shown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2015, only 81,000 people downed tools, a drastic downturn from 2014, when 733,300 workers took strike action.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Only 170,000 days were lost to strike action last year, which accounted for just 0.003 per cent of all working days and was the second lowest since records began in 1893. Last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s figures were in sharp contrast to previous periods in history \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in 1979, nearly 30m days were lost to strike action amid the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098winter of discontent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and in 1926, after the general strike more than 162m days were lost.<\/p>\n

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The vast majority of strikes last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 70 per cent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c involved disputes relating to pay, with actions over redundancies being the second most common.<\/p>\n

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Most strikes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 60 per cent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c lasted no more than three days, with about a third lasting only one day.<\/p>\n

Transport and storage was the sector involved in the greatest number of disputes last year, followed by public administration\/defence and education.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TUC general secretary Frances O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Grady said that latest figures show that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgoing on strike is always a last resort when your employer won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t negotiate and won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t compromise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Far less common <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bStrikes are far less common these days and tend to be short,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMost strikes are about people demanding fair pay, which is unsurprising given that real wages have fallen off a cliff in the past decade.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bGood industrial relations depend on fair wages and decent rights at work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe new prime minister has spoken about raising wages \u00e2\u20ac\u201c now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to live up to that promise.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The latest figures on industrial disputes come against a backdrop in which the trade union Act \u00e2\u20ac\u201c designed to restrict the right to strike \u00e2\u20ac\u201c has just been made law.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But none of these provisions, including strike thresholds and tighter rules on picketing among other measures, have yet gone into effect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite argues that the record low numbers of strikes taken last year proves that the divisive trade union Act pushed through by the Tory government was completely needless.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis all-time low in strike days undermines the whole premise of the flawed trade union Act which was promoted as necessary legislation needed to curb strike-hungry trade unions,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 a Unite spokesperson has said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese figures prove this is patently not the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe vast majority of industrial disputes are settled by sensible negotiations between employers and unions, and only ever reach the strike stage when unreasonable bosses dig in their heels. Trade union members only take strike action as a last resort.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe trade union Act should be repealed as it has been shown to be an ideologically-driven piece of law-making and nothing to do with the maintenance of good industrial relations. It was a sop to the virulent anti-trade unionists on the Tory backbenches who won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be happy until every piece of worker protection is done away with.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

@hajera_unite<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The number of workers who took strike action last year dipped to their lowest level in recorded history, figures published yesterday (August 2) have shown.   In 2015, only 81,000 people downed tools, a drastic downturn from 2014, when 733,300 workers took strike action.   Only 170,000 days were lost to strike action last year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[132,566,567],"wps_subtitle":"Level undermines TU Act premise","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9437,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436\/revisions\/9437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}