Green Co members (Sheffield Household Waste Recycling Centres) are embroiled in a bitter battle after staff have been sacked or forced to leave their jobs in a long dispute about how the centres are being run. Bullying, pay and poor welfare facilities are the key issues.

GMB is organising a protest on Friday 5th December in South Elmsall, West Yorkshire in response to the report that NEXT offered Christmas jobs to Polish workers at the warehouse there before being advertised in Britain. This coincides with the national tour by Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott calling on NEXT to pay enough hours of work for people to live on and as a first step towards £10 per hour living wage pay £7.85 per hour and £9.20 per hour in London. Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott tour reaches Yorkshire on 4th December when they play in Sheffield.

GMB commented on the Autumn Statement delivered on 3rd December 2014 by George Osborne Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said “The so called “prudent” Mr Osborne will borrow more in five years at the Treasury than Labour chancellors he labels as profligate did in thirteen. The welcome increase in economic activity is partly linked to population growth as GDP per head is still 3% below 2007 levels. The real value of take home pay for workers is 13% below pre–recession levels while many of the new jobs are precarious and badly paid. If this is success I would not like to think what failure looks like.”

Protest Over Next Not Offering Jobs In UK As Paul Heaton And Jacqui Abbot Tour Supporting Next Workers Returns To Yorkshire
This gross abuse of UK and migrant workers by NEXT is not unique as union estimates show that one million workers are exploited as posted workers annually says GMB

Rather than pay workers in a standard PAYE manner there has been a mass move to pay workers via umbrella companies, which charge their ‘employees’ for their services. They also charge the worker both employers’ and employees’ national insurance contributions and they have been alleged to add strange inexplicable charges. Not only are construction workers losing out – typically by up to £120 a week – but so is the exchequer.

GMB, the union for school support staff, will join with other unions to lobby Rotherham Council ( RMBC) Cabinet Members on Wednesday 26th November at the Town Hall from 9.30am to reject the proposed closure of Abbey Special School in Kimberworth which would potentially mean 37 redundancies. This is part of a joint union/ parent campaign to save the school from closure. Consultations on the closure are underway. Abbey School has 87 children with a range of behavioural and learning difficulties. It has suffered disruption since a staff restructuring programme was introduced last year.

A personnel chief has been condemned for telling a meeting of blacklisted workers that the scandal was a “big fuss about very little.” So-called “employee relations expert” Mike Emmott, from human resources workers’ professional body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), made the comments following his keynote speech at the Manchester Industrial Relations Society’s 50th anniversary conference on Friday.

GMB, the union for tied pub tenants, welcome the vote by 284 to 259 ( majority 25) in Parliament on Tuesday, 18th November 2014 for a new Clause 2 in the Small Business Bill which puts a ‘market rent only’ (MRO) option for tied pub tenants on to the statute book. The Government is committed to introducing a statutory code of practice for the large pub companies in the Small Business Bill that reached the Report stage today in Parliament. That Bill will enshrine in law the long accepted but largely ignored principle: that the tied licensee should not be worse off than a free of tie licensee. This new clause introduces the market rent only option for tenants of the large pubcos, who own more than 500 pubs, with this applying only to companies that own 500 or more pubs, applying to their leased, tenanted and franchised pubs only.

The strike action on Monday will be followed by action short of strike (ASOS) from 11.01 a.m. on Monday 24th November until Sunday 30th November midnight. GMB members in the ambulance service will to take part in action short of strike (ASOS) from 11.01 a.m. on Monday 24th November until Sunday 30th November midnight after Monday’s strike. This will consist of a ban on all planned voluntary overtime in the ambulance service.

GMB members in local government and schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as members the other two local government unions have voted to accept a pay offer put forward by the Local Government Association. 1.5 million council workers and school staff have taken a pragmatic decision to accept a two-year deal which is worth around 2.35% on average and up to 9.6% for the lowest paid.