Bishop Auckland Hospital is part of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. In recent years various part of its services have been downgraded. The latest proposal is to close Ward 7, which provides speciality frailty care ward. Patients are overwhelmingly older, have been referred there following a fall or serious respiratory condition, and spend between 1-4 weeks in order to be able to then move home independently. As well as cutting needed beds the proposed closure is part of wider downgrading of services. These services play a vital role in the care Bishop Auckland Hospital is able to provide.

1. Witness Liaison Officers at South Yorkshire Police earn £5,000 LESS than West Yorkshire Witness Liaison Officers, despite doing the same job. In short, people who deliver a vital and difficult service are being paid less than those in identical roles only 45mins up the M1. 2. Witness Liaison Officers provide support and assistance to victims and witnesses throughout the criminal justice process, often speaking with and supporting highly vulnerable individuals including rape, domestic and child abuse victims.  3. South Yorkshire Police admit Witness Liaison Officers in West and South Yorkshire do the same job, yet South Yorkshire still refuse to accept that the pay rates for the role are too low, or that their job evaluation system is broken, well, broken for those at the bottom, not those in Senior Command who use a different job evaluation system similar to the one in West Yorkshire. The people who provide support to some of the most vulnerable at an incredibly difficult time deserve better. Please sign and share your support for Witness Liaison Officers. 

For many patients, hydrotherapy provides a safe, low-impact form of rehabilitation that cannot easily be replicated elsewhere. Now it is slated for closure. The knock-on impact for patients, their families and the wider community means that many will experience inferior treatment or lengthy journeys, just to carry on with their treatment. GMB members working in the Hydrotherapy pool and within the wider therapy services deeply value their role and the meaningful care they are able to provide to their patients by using this facility. The union is appalled by the decision to close the pool, which has caused significant concern for staff and threatens job insecurity. We are equally concerned about the lack of proper consultation. Please support this important campaign.

Today, British workers put in the longest full-time working hours compared to almost every country in the EU and at the same time we have one of the least productive economies. Research conducted by the 4 Day Week Global Campaign has found that:  • 63% of organisations find it easier to attract and retain staff with a four-day week • 78% of employees with a four-day week are happier and less stressed  • 92% of companies in the UK opted to continue with the four day week • Levels of anxiety and fatigue decreased • Mental and physical health both improved • The number of staff leaving participating companies decreased significantly, dropping by 57% over the trial period Current part-time workers could also stand to benefit from a pro-rata reduction in their working hours with no loss of pay, provided job descriptions and workload expectations are realistic for the number of hours worked. The arguments in favour of a four-day working week gain increasing ground as ever more new technology is introduced into the workplace, generating substantial productivity gains, and those benefits should be shared among the workforce. Dorset Council would bolster and help cement their reputation as a cutting-edge employer and institution among staff, students, Dorset and the wider community. Further, they’d be helping lead the way nationally and in the sector on being a four-day working week employer as a key component of changing our working life. We call on Dorset Council to commit to implementing a four-day working week trial in the institution, with the view to making it permanent. UNISON Dorset Branch

This matters because the proposed closure isn't about the work ending, it's about an office closing. The jobs still need doing, but experienced staff could be forced out of the DWP or asked to travel much further for work. In an area with limited opportunities for similar jobs, that would be a real blow to workers, their families and the local economy.

Staff have been forced to work while suffering from dehydration, with members even reporting that they’ve fainted on the way home from work, when this was raised with management they received no response. Gallery assistants are also expected to work shifts in the garden at the South Kensington site in extreme hot weather putting their health, and the safety of visitors at risk. Our members have had enough! They said “the V&A has shown it does not value its lowest paid workers indispensable contributions to the operations of its museums. Without us these buildings don’t operate”. We need sufficient mitigations to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues now!    Further to these major health and safety incidents, after multiple attempts to negotiate, V&A management have failed to provide a meaningful pay offer for workers . They have also refused to become a Real Living Wage accredited employer. We work in one of the country’s most prestigious institutions, a landmark that is visited by people from all over the world yet we are treated with contempt when we ask for the bare minimum commitment from our employer to ensure we can afford to keep up with the rising cost of living in London.     When we mention that curators in other institutions have higher salaries, we are told a bigger increase for us would only be possible if they lower pay for our front of house colleagues. We all deserve fair pay, and it’s not fair that an uplift for some should result in poverty wages for others!   

Nearly everyone - 94% of adults in the UK - uses the BBC every month. The BBC has an incredible range of TV, audio and digital services - from Planet Earth to the Proms, from BBC Bitesize and The World Service to live coverage of the World Cup - all without advertising and without subscription fees. For around £3.50 a week, that’s remarkable value for money.  In return the BBC contributes £6.7 billion to the economy every year and drives the wider creative industries: nurturing talent, commissioning work, engaging thousands of freelancers and directly employing over 20,000 staff.  People across the UK’s nations, regions and local communities should see their lives and stories reflected in the BBC’s news, drama, film and musical productions.   To do this, the BBC needs proper funding. The renewal of the BBC Charter - which happens every ten years and is already underway - offers an opportunity for the government to give the BBC the resources and reforms it needs to provide a quality public service, free from commercial or political interference.  This means the BBC remaining universally funded and accessible to all. This means worker representation and no more political appointees on the BBC board. This means the BBC being the gold standard on employment rights: driving up pay, terms and conditions, and generating opportunities for workers across the country.  The constant cycle of cuts and cost-saving must end. Public services only work when we invest in them and the people who provide them.  We urge the BBC’s new director general Matt Brittin to listen to his workers and call on the UK government to urgently intervene.  How can I get involved?  The BBC is ours – and it’s up to us to fight for it.  Sign this petition to show solidarity with workers and demonstrate how much a properly funded, independent and representative BBC means to you and your community. Please share this petition and ask your family and friends to sign too.  Read more about the Broadcasting, Entertainment & Arts Unions’ (BEAU) Charter Renewal demands. 

This dispute exemplifies the failings of outsourcing government work for profit. Cutting hours and/or staff is not in the interests of the workers delivering these important services, nor is it in the interests of the public sector workers to whom they deliver these services These cuts only benefit Sodexo.  PCS believes that outsourcing is a failed experiment, and this dispute is further evidence of that.

Civil servants deserve a pension service they can trust. Sign this petition to demand action now.

RMT estimates that more than £400 million of the railway's money is lost to outsourcing and sub-contracting firms every year. The profits from Churchill’s contract at GTR – who operate Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern Services, and Gatwick Express services – could be enough to employ the equivalent of 83 additional cleaners or 160,000 extra hours of cleaning. The creation of Great British Railways is a big step forward, ending profiteering by train operating companies and creating an integrated publicly owned railway. But too many people are still being left out, including tens of thousands of outsourced and sub-contracted workers. Railway workers in outsourced companies work just as hard and contribute just as much to public transport as those directly employed. They deserve to see the benefits of public ownership too. Add your name to call on the CEO of GTR to end outsourcing, starting with Churchill cleaners.

Digital systems cannot replace specialist expertise The Orthopaedics Library is a highly specialised service, supporting staff and students in clinical orthopaedics, musculoskeletal sciences, rehabilitation, and biomedical engineering. Digital resources cannot replace the various specialist expertise provided by on-site library staff, such as guidance on using clinical databases, guaranteed library skills support for finding relevant literature, or support gaining rapid and accurate evidence retrieval necessary for ongoing healthcare education. Libraries build clinical and educational communities  The Institute of Orthopaedics Library is an important site for building the clinical and educational community that bolsters the aims of UCL and its NHS partners. Removing the physical library space risks weakening collaboration between clinicians and researchers and remove specialist environments, impairing clinical research and learning in the process. Libraries closures hurt students and accessibility Closing the Institute of Orthopaedics Library removes guaranteed access and space for students and staff based on the Stanmore campus, as well as limiting access to library resources and services. It also reduces access for certain disabled users, who require adapted study environments and staff working on-site. Those with limited or unreliable digital access will also be disadvantaged, lacking the computers, specialist terminals, and staffed support environments that currently allow them to access digital resources.  Staff face redeployment and/or redundancy All but one library staff member at the Institute of Orthopaedics Library face being moved to ringfenced vacancies within LCCOS. These posts are based at sites almost an hour from their current Stanmore site. Many of these jobs deemed suitable for ringfencing are substantially different from the roles these staff currently hold. The proposals also put certain staff at risk of redundancy and/or downgrading. These are specialist staff with years of service to UCL - to treat them this way is simply unacceptable. A rushed process UCL LCCOS management announced these proposals on 11 May. They intend to only hold a month-long consultation process, with the aim to close the library by 1st September. This is an incredibly rushed timeline, which does not allow time for meaningful consultation with affected staff and students, and would add immense workload pressures on these same staff who will expected to undertake the preparatory work necessary to close the library. We must stop UCL’s specialist site closure trend  In recent years, several specialist services have been closed in areas such as Eastman Dental, Ear Nose and Throat, and Ophthalmology. This reflects a wider trend towards centralisation of services in UCL and closure of remote access sites. Closing the Orthopaedics Library would continue this trajectory, and will likely unnerve dedicated staff in similar, smaller library sites.

The Halliard Academy Trust de-recognised the school workforce Unions when schools joined the Trust.  This means that there is no collective bargaining taking place between your employer and your Union.  Signing this petition will send a strong message to your employer that you, as a staff body, expect your employer to consult and negotiate with your Union in respect of all matters connected to your employment including contractual terms and conditions, employment policies, staffing restructures, equality matters, health and  safety, workload etc.. Let’s take action – sign this online petition and share with your colleagues.