We, NHS workers and users recognise the hard work domestics do every day to keep the hospital and public safe. We support their fight to keep their jobs in the NHS. When hospital cleaning services are privatised infection rates go up and workers’ pay is cut. We also stand against the hospital’s attempt to make the domestics paid their own nationally agreed NHS pay deal by cutting their bank/overtime hours. Bedford Hospital is targeting its lowest-paid workers, many of whom are migrant women — we believe this is an attack on equality.

I am Roland Zollner, a barrister from Liverpool, who has retired from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It is now almost a decade since the Government announced swingeing cuts to the CPS, the Courts, legal aid and the entire Criminal Justice System. Real term pay-cuts of up to 42% are pushing lawyers away from criminal law towards more financially rewarding areas of practice. The explosion of digital evidence has put – as one FDA CPS member put it – “an almost intolerable burden on prosecutors”. Yet while disclosure has become more time-consuming since 2010, the budget of the CPS has fallen by 25% in the same period. As a result, 95.7% of prosecutors surveyed by the FDA now think the department does not have enough lawyers to deal with disclosure issues. “Due to many years of underinvestment, our Criminal Justice System is crumbling.” – Christina Blacklaws, President of the Law Society “A properly functioning Criminal Justice System is fundamental to the rule of law. It is a damning indictment of our times that those in power need reminding.” – The Secret Barrister “Our system of justice, which was once held up as world-class, is now very sick. But it would not take much investment to put it right.” – Richard Atkins QC, Chair of the Bar Council Help us put it right: sign the petition.

South Yorkshire Fire Authority is planning to save up to £4 million a year by cutting the number of firefighters crewing a fire appliance from five to four. This change will see the loss of 83 jobs and put the lives of people in South Yorkshire at risk. Five is the minimum number of firefighters needed to safely tackle a blaze and to rescue a member of the public trapped inside a burning building. Committing fewer firefighters to an incident risks leaving those inside with less support in a life or death situation. South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service say the only other alternative is to slow down response times by reducing the number of fire engines immediately available. It is unacceptable that budget shortfalls will result in firefighters and the public being put at greater risk.

HMRC’s ill-considered office closure plans, which they still euphemistically call ‘Building Our Future’, will have a particularly heavy impact on PCS members working in International House in Ealing. Many members working in the office have been redeployed previously, some several times, before being based at Ealing having therefore already gone through the “torment” of earlier office closures. As a result many Ealing staff do not live in Ealing and this combined with a significant proportion of staff having caring responsibilities and/or disabilities - making it near impossible for them to commute to Stratford. The closure of International House, if the work there is not relocated locally to another premises will mean that HMRC will no longer have a presence in Ealing, leading to a detrimental local socio economic impact in the area, the impact to the local economy could be as much as £1million per year.

Bank staff at RDaSH have resisted the move to NHSP for sometime, as opposed to other trusts who have gradually moved onto NHSP over the past few years. Staff forced onto NHSP contracts are now seeing their rights eroded. NHSP have not been awarded the lump sum and members have no way of challenging this. WHY? Because NHSP do not negotiate with trade unions! NHSP is preferred by trusts as it saves the them money, it does this by paying less to the bank staff. So, if you want to do any overtime you will be forced to sign onto NHSP and then get paid less than you would get for your substantive post. Imagine working on bank alongside a colleague on a substantive post, doing the same job but being paid less! Pay and conditions are protected by keeping the bank contracts with RDaSH, plain and simple! We need to fight and say no NSHP!

Edinburgh City Council faces a £76m funding black hole and we have seen over many years now, the devastating impact of austerity and cuts to council budgets and the threat to democratic accountability. Local government is under pressure as never before.

The more support we have the more we tell the businesses that we value our retail workers and their safety and general health without pushing them so hard they become ill.

Key workers are getting this country through the pandemic. They headed out to work when the rest of the country stayed at home – putting themselves and their families at risk. It’s time to end the low pay and insecure work that leave many of these workers struggling, and make sure every key worker gets a payrise. The coronavirus crisis demonstrated how much we all owe to all our key workers - healthcare staff, care workers, retail and delivery workers, public transport workers, teachers and support staff, cleaners, energy workers and so many others. But the fact is, many of these workers - an estimated two million - are on the national minimum wage. And many are in insecure work, employed on zero hours contracts with poor terms and conditions. The government can raise the minimum wage. It can use its powers to ban zero hours contracts. And it directly sets the wages of four million key workers in the public sector. It’s time for ministers to act – and give all our key workers the payrise they have earned. Ministers turned up to clap for key workers every Thursday during the lockdown. Now is the time for them to show their support again.

Refuse workers are working three or four to a cab, with no social distancing measures, a lack of hand cleaner & no additional protective equipment, putting themselves and the public at risk of Coronavirus. Additionally staff with serious conditions, such as cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), have been told they will only get statutory sick pay whilst self-isolating. Please sign this petition and support your refuse workers.