Housing Executive and Post Office staff across Northern Ireland strike over pay

Unite the Union says the four week strike at NIHE will have a “severe impact” on housing services, starting from Monday 5 September.

Unite said the NIHE strike was called after management “failed to make any offer whatsoever” to improve pay and meet the pay claim of Unite members. NIHE workers’ demands include a cash payment alongside a consolidated two pay point increase above the [National Joint Council] national pay offer for 2021-22, which is a “bare” 1.75 percent.

Workers in many sectors argue that such pay offers are de facto pay cuts as the inflation rate is currently over 10% and predicted to rise to 13% soon by the Bank of England.

A spokesperson for the Housing Executive responded: “We have been made aware of further planned industrial action by Unite the Union commencing 5 September.

“During this period of industrial action we will seek to ensure that any impact on customer service is minimised.”

Meanwhile the UK leader of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) declared today’s industrial action by postal workers as “the biggest strike in the UK since 2009”, as he said more than 115,000 UK postal workers were out protesting over pay.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward says his members voted in favour of the strike by 97.6% in a ballot, after management “imposed” a 2% pay rise on employees but “rewarded themselves with record bonuses”.

Erin Massey, NI Secretary of the The Communication Workers Union, added: “Here in Northern Ireland together, we will have around 5000 CWU Members on strike over the next seven days. This is one of the largest private sector walkouts in living memory, this has been forced on us by the historic cost of living increase which CEO’s refuse to address and refuse to negotiate with CWU.”

Royal Mail CEO Mr Thompson denied the accusation that money from the company has been handed to shareholders, saying the Covid-19 “bubble has burst”.

The CEO added: “What is actually on the table at this point in time is 5.5%, which would cost us around about £230m... in a business that is currently losing £1m a day.”