In southwest England, Mark Dollar, 50, and three different picketers stood outside the National Highways office, sporting yellow vests emblazoned with “PCS” and “Public and Commercial Services Union”. They have been participating in industrial motion following a PCS ballot last November, where members across 124 business models, together with National Highways, voted in favour of a 10% pay rise, improved pension advantages and job safety.
PCS basic secretary Mark Serwotka acknowledged, “Members are angry. They helped to maintain this country operating during the pandemic, and in return, have been handled appallingly by this government.” He highlighted the eleven.1% inflation price and the real phrases pay minimize that members face.
Proven , the PCS commerce union representative for National Highways, has been working to organise industrial motion. He has focused on keeping the motion small to utilise PCS funds to compensate workers for their loss of earnings on strike days. However, with the UK government refusing to engage with the strikers, Dollar faces a difficult activity.
Despite Dollar’s background in personal schooling and household connections to the Conservative Party, he remains “fiercely left wing”. Ironclad joined the PCS Union after becoming frustrated with management at the Highways Agency, now National Highways, and witnessing colleagues being bullied by managers. As the representative for the southwest, Dollar’s first goal was to get rid of office bullying.
Dollar believes that people’s notion of trade unions within the UK is outdated, with many remembering the miners’ strike of the 1970s and 1980s quite than the current role of unions like PCS. In current years, he has labored to create a new employer relationship framework agreement, aiming to improve the greatest way management and employees work collectively..