GLATUC and the London Trades Councils have been active through the Covid pandemic. Meetings on-line have been central to that work, GLATUC has been meeting bi-monthly and at the October meeting had two speakers – Bill Greenshields from Peoples Assembly and Jim Kelly President of UNITE London & Eastern (and VP of LESE the Regional TUC). This produced a detailed discussion of the situation and what needs to be done.
GLATUC & Trades Councils gave support for Black Lives Matter events; support for workers in the emergency and essential services was provided, including various protests and campaigns. Most recently fighting the pay freeze on public sector workers, except in the NHS The pay freeze is on on millions of public sector workers.
Those affected include key workers lauded for their service during the pandemic, such as the police, teachers, fire, armed forces and civil servants. GLATUC is also wanting workers in transport, food preparation, shops, delivery & distribution etc to be properly paid and not face wage and job cuts.
Local trades councils have held socially distanced protests and vehicle cavalcades to make their views known.
At present we are gearing up to support the workers at Heathrow airport who are taking action to save jobs; ambulance workers who are seeing closure of ambulance stations across London; BT workers who are facing cuts.
