Security guards to join huge day of strikes

Security guards are the latest group of workers planning to strike next week on what will be the biggest day of industrial action in decades.

Members of the IWGB union working for contractors at London university UCL will walk out on February 1 as part of a campaign for a wage rate of £15 an hour.

On the same day, teachers, train drivers, civil servants and university lecturers will be on strike in worsening disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

The TUC is also organising nationwide events on February 1 to protest against the Government’s controversial planned law on making unions agree to provide minimum levels of service during industrial action.

Unions believe the planned legislation would lead to workers being sacked even if they had lawfully voted to strike.

Industrial unrest has been growing for months across the country involving rail workers, nurses, other NHS staff, teachers, civil servants, council workers and others.

Some union leaders have been pressing for co-ordinated action to try to break deadlocked disputes and believe that February 1 could be the start of a wave of different groups of workers going on strike on the same day.

Unions involved in next week’s walkouts are the National Education Union, the Public and Commercial Services union, the University and College Union, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, and Aslef.

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has announced that its members working as outsourced security guards at UCL will also strike on February 1.

Henry Chango Lopez, general secretary of IWGB said: “UCL’s use of outsourcing is outdated and exploitative.

“Workers face systemic discrimination in the form of poor pay and treatment from their subcontractors, and are ignored and belittled when they demand change.”