Over the last decade, pay for civil servants and others covered by the pay remit guidance has been under attack and has lagged behind inflation, and pay levels and increases in the private sector. Individual departments have had their hands tied by the Cabinet Office and have been unable to offer fair pay increases for their staff – and it’s gone on for too long. This has been compounded by the absence of pay progression arrangements. Public servants deserve a fair deal – they are always important to our way of life, but their dedication has been crucial in getting us through the pandemic. The least they deserve is for their living standards to be maintained, and their knowledge, skills and experience rewarded. Among staff and employers there is a common recognition that pay systems are broken and in the need of fundamental reform and adequate funding. Please sign this petition for fair pay for those who help defend, protect, support and enhance all of our lives.

The new Waste to Energy plant planned at Skelton Grange could be a chance to bring hundreds of good, skilled jobs to the Leeds area. The £250m build project will have a huge impact when finished, powering 100,000 local homes. We need to ensure that terms and conditions are protected and enhanced, so we can bring everyone with us as we transition to a greener future – sustainability and development at the same time. We want an end to undercutting on pay and conditions, which harms our communities and creates resentment rather than collaboration. The National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NAECI) is comprehensive set of terms and conditions of employment for hourly-paid engineering construction workers on major projects across the UK. It’s a nationally agreed standard for good work in construction, and it’s a way to make sure that new projects meet their responsibilities. We think the NAECI agreement should be the baseline for everyone working on the build of the Skelton Grange Waste to Energy plant. It’s a commitment to the community that was proposed early on, but we are worried HZI and Leeds City Council will try to quietly drop this important safeguard if we don’t raise the pressure on it now. Join us and demand HZI and Leeds City Council get round the table with the unions Unite and GMB and agree to establishing NAECI standards across the site.

CHEP UK is a hugely profitable company, yet it is refusing to give its workers a pay rise that reflects the true value of their work & takes into account the UK's soaring living costs. While the Retail Price Index is currently over 7.5%, CHEP UK, which made profits of £60 million last year, has offered its workers a below inflation pay rise. This means a pay cut for CHEP workers in real terms. Rather than look after its workforce, CHEP appears to be more interested in boosting profits and rewarding its shareholders - who received a £50 million pay-out just last year. This has left the company's workers with no choice but to take a stand through strike action. We are asking you to support our campaign and demand that CHEP give their workers a fair pay rise and bring this dispute to an end. Simply put: workers should not be facing an attack on their living standards while company shareholders are raking in millions of pounds. Deliver Fair Pay for CHEP workers NOW!

If you’ve ever bought something from Primark, it’s likely come to you via Thrapston in Northamptonshire. Primark’s enormous national warehouse is based there, distributing to stores all over the country. The warehouse is run for Primark by international logistics firm DHL, who employ many hundreds of people on Primark’s behalf. Throughout the pandemic, DHL made long-running mistakes in calculating furlough pay for many staff. They now want to deduct the overpayments from the affected workers’ wages to claw the money back. Whether it’s fair or not, employers do have a right to do this under UK employment law. But workers have some protection in that they should be offered a fair payment plan, not expected to pay it back at once. Otherwise it can count as “unlawful deduction from wages”. That’s what’s happening for most workers at the site, but one group of 72 drivers and office staff are being expected to repay everything at once – in some cases up to £1,300 from one pay cheque! This is because DHL are transferring their employment to another company in February and they think they can get away with it. DHL are retaining the majority of the work at Primark’s warehouse, just not this part of it. And the workers will still be based at the same site and still working for Primark, just not on DHL’s payroll. It would cost DHL very little to play fair by these workers and set up longer term repayments, even after they’ve moved to the new employer. Through their union, URTU, these workers are challenging the decision, but there’s very little time left. Caught between an employer who are trying to get out of their responsibilities, and an imminent deadline, Primark need to step in now and tell DHL to sort it out if they are to have a decent working relationship at Thrapston going forward. They can’t allow employment laws in their warehouse to be breached so flagrantly. Can you please help us write to Primark? Showing customers care about what happens in their UK supply chain will have a big effect on them.

Impact on passenger safety, service and accessibility Research shows time and time again that passengers like and value ticket offices and ticket office staff. In the 2022 public consultation on ScotRail's proposals, 99% of respondents objected to the plans. Issues raised in the consultation included the impact on accessibility, access to NHS hospitals, station facilities, anti-social behaviour. The overwhelming opposition to the UK Government's plans to close around 1000 ticket offices last year also reinforced the value that passengers place on ticket offices. The Scottish Government's own research into women and girls safety found that staffed ticket offices make women and girls feel safer when travelling. Despite the overwhelming evidence about the importance of ticket offices for passengers, the Scottish Government and ScotRail are trying to press ahead with these plans that would  see reductions in the times that 70% of ScotRail's ticket offices are open. Impact on station staffing Ticket office staffing is the only regulated station staffing, meaning ticket offices are the only way for passengers to guarantee when staff will be at a station.  At some of the 101 stations, ScotRail has said that it will keep staffing hours the same, however, there's nothing to hold them to that, and the company could reduce station staffing in the future with no public consultation. We believe that this will lead to de-staffing by stealth.  Staffed ticket offices are the only way for passengers to be confident about when staff will be present at the station.  Outdated public consultation process Crucially, the 2022 public consultation was undertaken by a process that is now obsolete. At the time, the passenger watchdog Transport Focus could only object to train operator proposals based on a very narrow criteria relating to ticket sales data. However, the process now requires Transport Focus to take a range of factors into account including the impact on accessibility, access to facilities at the station, safety and security and future monitoring of change.  The Cabinet Secretary, Fiona Hyslop MSP has admitted she is aware the guidance on ticket offices has changed, yet she has still given ScotRail the go-ahead to proceed without needing to hold a new public consultation under the current process. RMT believes that basing these plans on a process that is now obsolete means these proposals lack any legitimacy. 

The BBC’s contribution to the UK public broadcasting landscape goes far beyond news and programming. The BBC provides ten TV services, BBC iPlayer, 10 UK radio stations, over 40 Nations and local radio stations, BBC Sounds and one of the UK’s most popular websites, all for just 43p a day. Here’s a few reasons why the BBC matters: • The BBC became the UK’s largest classroom during COVID-19 - with two thirds of primary school students using Bitesize education during lockdown • It brings us together – during the pandemic most people turned into the BBC for the latest updates • It creates jobs across the UK – already half of BBC jobs are outside London, with over £100 million invested in skills and training over the last 4 years • It supports our creative industries and local news – 39 local radio stations and countless local projects and careers in the creative industries. • Putting British values on the world stage – former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan called the World Service “Britain’s greatest gift to the world this century”. Despite numerous attempts to undermine the licence fee, no-one has come up with a better funding model that would protect its unique local, national and international reach. Any suggestions that the BBC should be funded by subscription or advertising revenue are wide of the mark. The public service ethos of the BBC to inform, entertain and educate is something that we should fiercely protect and fund properly. Join us. Help support our BBC.

We are NHS workers in Lancashire and we urgently need your support. As hospital cleaners and catering staff, we are outsourced to OCS and have worked 24/7 throughout the pandemic to keep staff and patients safe. But while OCS boasts it turned over hundreds of millions during the COVID crisis, it continues to pay us less than our NHS colleagues doing exactly the same jobs. Hospital workers employed by OCS are £2000 worse off than our colleagues working for the NHS. We also have inferior working conditions including 7 days less annual leave and lower sick pay. We submitted a collective grievance about this issue in May 2021, and EIGHT MONTHS on, we finally received a response- which failed to address any of the issues and passed blame to the NHS Trust. We have become increasingly frustrated and have now voted 97.8% in favour of taking strike action to resolve this issue. One OCS worker said: "I work for OCS as a domestic on the hospital wards. When accepted the job I was told the rate of pay was minimum wage, but was not told I would be working alongside work colleagues on a different contract which has a higher rate of hourly pay and full sick pay, they also receive 35 days holidays and we get 28 days including bank holidays. We have all worked through the pandemic, working on Covid 19 wards where some Covid patients have been walking freely around the wards. As a thank you from OCS we received a 2 finger KitKat and told we could also have an extra 10 minute break! We all found this very insulting, we have been fighting our dispute with OCS for 3 years now and we feel that the 2 tier pay system and contracts that OCS have in place are very unfair and causes friction amongst work colleagues, we all do the same job and we should all receive the same rate of pay and terms and conditions." Sadly, OCS still isn’t listening. We think that a great way to get the Chief Executive’s attention is to flood his inbox with emails from all of us. Can you take a few minutes to email Bob Taylor? It’s easy, you just need to add your details and press send. We don’t want to strike if we can avoid it, especially not in the middle of a global pandemic but we will do what it takes to get fair treatment. Health bosses and OCS can still avert a strike by agreeing to pay us the correct rate for the job. Claps don't pay the bills. Key workers demand fair pay. #ONENHS, nobody left behind.

Becoming an academy has profound implications for children and young people, parents, staff and the local community. The decision to apply for academy status is made by the school’s governing body, which is required to consult with ‘appropriate’ persons. We believe that it is essential that there should be full consultation with parents and the local community about such an important decision. We have grave reservations about academy status. We believe that any change to the school should be one that makes a positive difference to children’s educational attainment and there is no evidence to show that Stockbridge Village Primary School becoming an academy would raise educational standards. We hope that having considered all of the information, you will share our view that the high level of risk involved in academy status far outweighs any of the suggested advantages and decide to cease seeking academy status. The decision to become an academy is irreversible. There is no going back!

Regina Coeli House in West Belfast is the only women-only hostel in Northern Ireland providing accommodation and support to the homeless, those with addictions, mental health challenges or survivors of domestic abuse. The 21-bed facility faces the threat of impending closure as the Legion of Mary, who own the building, claim they cannot maintain it any more. But letting our only women’s hostel shut its doors is wrong. The staff of Regina Coeli House who face redundancy are bravely fighting to keep this vital service open. If the Legion of Mary cannot maintain this building, they must do the right thing and transfer the building to the Housing Executive who must be prepared to step forward to keep this service running. It’s not too late to save Regina Coeli House and the jobs we love. Please join us in calling on the Management Committee to transfer this facility and grounds to the Housing Executive, who must step in to run this service, so that with funding from Communities’ Minister Deirdre Hargey we can expand access to an all-too-vital service for vulnerable women. Thank you The staff of Regina Coeli House

Glasgow as a city has a vibrant nightlife and as stated by the Licensing Policy Statement (2018) the nightlife industry generates £2.16bn every year. The nightlife industry is clearly crucial to Glasgow’s economy however the safety of the workers that allow the industry to function is not the priority for employers, Glasgow City Council or the licensing board. We are calling for this to change. The 17,000 jobs mentioned in the policy report neglects to highlight the precarious nature of this form of employment and the sacrifices night workers need to make to simply get home safe. SafeHome is a campaign led by a network of women and shift workers in hospitality, cinemas and other late night premises; demanding a safe transport home from shifts that does not leave any worker financially worse off or compromise their safety when returning home from work. We have entered the festive period which for most is a time for enjoying Christmas parties with friends and colleagues however the reality for nightlife workers is an extension to license hours for employers to make more profit. This means further harassment,higher difficulty getting home and dealing with the fact that no real safety measures are being put in place to protect staff. We are calling for Glasgow City Council to recognise the difficulty workers face and change the realities of hospitality and late night working in the city. Our campaign highlights the realities of workers trying to get home safe which can range from taxi fares being deducted from payslips, measly £4 credit provided by multi million pound companies and having to pay substantial portions of wages on taxi fare. Workers have to attempt to navigate a busy dangerous city center at unsociable hours and risk being assaulted on the way home after a shift. These scenarios are not hypothetical, they are the reality of working in the nightlife economy. This was the reality for one of our activists when finishing work in the city center earlier this year. When the last bus for the evening failed to show up she had to walk through the city center and was sexually assaulted in the street. This came after her employer refused to provide paid transport past the last bus. Incidents like these are avoidable and this is just one case of many.

By removing the Trade Union Act 2016, we begin the process to repeal anti-trade union laws that have been placed upon us by the Conservatives. The right to strike is just that; a right. Yet Conservative government after Conservative government has decided that we must jump over unnecessary hurdles to earn what is rightfully ours. We must take a stand against this injustice.

The heritage and wider cultural sector was hit very hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of jobs were lost as vital income streams dried up. As museums, galleries and other spaces have been able to reopen to the public and tourism has begun to recover there have been some green shoots of recovery. However this can only happen with both a safe workforce and visitors that feel confident about attending Covid-secure venues. This is being put at risk by the failure of the UK government to mandate the wearing of facemasks for visitors to indoor heritage venues in England. Although masks will only be one part of a comprehensive strategy to address the risks posed by Covid the World Health Organisations recommends them as an important part of this comprehensive approach.