It's time for everyone to file a pension grievance

As the public sector pension dispute starts to unravel there is one highly effective tactic that hasn't yet been tried.
Everyone who is facing a change to their pension should take out an individual grievance.
It would cause chaos with employers having to organise millions of hearings - and millions of appeals.
Now is the perfect time as some changes are due to be imposed from April 1.
Changes to individual contracts should only happen after consultation. This has clearly not happened.
DON'T take out collective grievances - that's too easy for managers to deal with.
This is a tried and trusted tactic.
When I was National Union of Journalists' northern organiser we regularly used guerilla grievances to stop or seriosuly modify detrimental contract changes empolyers wanted to impose.
We did it at Sheffield Newspapers, Bradford Newspapers, the Bury Times, Bolton Evening News, Yorkshsire Coast Radio, and the Lancashire Telegraph in Blackburn, to give some examples.
Follow this link for a report on one of these instances - under the heading 'just say no' -
http://blog.calderdalenuj.org/2006_10_01_archive.html
These are smaller groups of workers - imagine the impact if millions of grievances landed on the desk of public sector managers.
Line managers and union reps wouldn't be able to work for weeks - possibly months - as the hearings were held.
This action can be taken by members of unions with leaders that have called off strikes. Even non-union workers can join in.
I hope the March 28 walkout goes ahead with the biggest numbers possible.
Mass grievances - run concurrently - would show the government, and union leaders, that these changes are not acceptable.

Journalists on strike: Read all about it

Journalists on local papers based in Brighton and Southampton have been on strike this week over a pay freeze and job cuts.
As reported on The Workers United the action is part of a co-ordinated attack to improve pay and conditions at the American-owned Newsquest group.
Today, according to National Union of Journalists assistant organiser Lawrence Shaw on Twitter: "Newsquest NUJ chapels vote for strike action over pay and cuts - Bolton (74%), Blackburn (100%) and Bradford (90%) on solid turnouts."
Members in Darlington voted for action last week.
Ballots are also underway in York, Andover, and Oxford.
For pictures and reports see:
The Brighton strikers' blog
and
The Southampton strikers' blog

Oxford, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton - everyone talk about strike action

Journalists at the US-owned Newsquest group are stepping up their industrial action over a three-year pay freeze and never ending job cuts.
Members of the National Union Journalists at the company's Brighton and Southampton centres are to take co-ordinated strike action next week.
Workers in Darlington voted 78 percent for strike action in a ballot this week.
Ballots are underway in Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, and York.
And this week journalists in Andover and Oxford agreed to be balloted for industrial action.
Newsquest - part of the giant American Gannett corporation - is Britain's second biggest newspaper publisher.
Staff have had a three year pay freeze - even though top bosses have paid themselves wacking rises and boasted about profits.
Next week's south coast strikes are on Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 December.
The Brighton and Southampton chapels have already held stoppages.
A chapel officer from the Daily Echo in Southampton said:"The messages of support and encouragement we had last time really helped to motivate people - and helped warm our hearts if not our cold hands and feet!"
The Daily Echo strikers have a blog, a Twitter page, a Facebook group, and pictures on flickr.
COMMENT:
Well done to Newsquest journalists for launching a co-ordinated attack on a ruthless employer.
If this low paid private sector workers can do what's happened to the co-ordianted action promised by the movement's big battalions at the TUC.

GUEST POST: Bradford journalists join colleagues fighting the big publishing company Newsquest

Newsquest’s bosses in West Yorkshire are worried about falling sales of their papers.
Solution: sack most of your newsroom staff and get them to apply for their own jobs – but there will be fewer of them.
If it wasn’t so serious, you could die laughing. Here’s a company that has lost the plot.
Its journalists, including 29 National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members, have endured a pay freeze lasting more than 1,000 days and the closure of their pension scheme. Now they’re being thrown on the scrap heap.
Paul Davidson, chief executive of this profitable British arm of an American-owned company, sits in his Surrey ivory tower with his enhanced pension and £106,000 pay rise while his managers steer a course for oblivion.
Two editors, six reporting staff and six photographers, including the NUJ’s father of chapel, are at risk of losing their jobs, along with some editorial middle managers’ posts. When the dust settles, there will be two fewer jobs.
Keighley, a post-industrial ex-mill town with high unemployment and social problems, will have its editorial operation merged with Ilkley, a genteel, affluent former spa town.
To pretend this is going to help sales is to live in cloud cuckoo land.
Enough is enough. The Newsquest Bradford chapel today announced it was balloting for industrial action, joining our Newsquest colleagues throughout England.
There have been strikes at Southampton and Brighton. Chapels - workplace branches - in York, Darlington, Bolton, and Blackburn are also balloting.
We’re fighting not just for our journalist members but for our towns and communities, which will be left with pale imitations of newspapers.
By Bob Smith, Father of Chapel, Newsquest Bradford and Newsquest group chapel, NUJ
Strike in Brighton
Ballot in Brighton
Ballot in Blackburn
Ballot in Darlington
Strike in Southampton
LATEST: Newsquest cut jobs in Scotland today
EXTRA: NUJ vice president Donnacha Delong reports from the Brighton picket line

Pilots union close to winning recognition at Jet2.com airline

The pilots union will today (November 3) try to persuade a hearing in London that it should be granted the right to represent workers at Jet2.com - without the need for a ballot.
The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) is following the UK’s statutory procedure for union recognition introduced by Labour in 2000.
The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) – the quango responsible – has already established that 62 percent of the workers in the proposed bargaining unit are members of the association.
BALPA wants to negotiate pay and conditions for 247 “flight deck pilots” of whom 174 are union members.
Jet2.com is a low cost airline with bases at Newcastle, Edinburgh, Belfast, Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, East Midlands, Blackpool and Exeter airports. It employs more than 1.000 people.
Today’s hearing will decide if BALPA can be granted recognition without a ballot.
Under the law a union needs a membership level of 50 percent plus one person to secure recognition – but employers are allowed to argue for a ballot.
Firms that are hostile to unions hope they can pressurise their employees into voting "no" during the balloting period.
But it would be unusual for the CAC to demand a ballot when a union has more than 60 percent membership.
Today’s hearing is at 10.30am in the Hilton London Euston Hotel, Upper Woburn Place, WC1H 0HT. It is open to the public.
The CAC website has a detailed report of the acceptance decision and the bargaining unit decision for BALPA’s application for recognition at Jet2.com.