PAY STRIKE PLANNED AT NATIONAL GALLERY IN LONDON
Staff at the National Gallery in central London have announced plans to strike this week in a row over pay, reports BBC News. Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union intend to walk out for two hours tomorrow, February 16, to protest their pay rates. Union members said some of the workers’ pay fell 60 pence short of London’s so-called living wage of £7.60 ($11.91) an hour.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said staff were “sick and tired” of working long hours. He added, “Staff who protect important artworks and assist the public are sick and tired of working fifty-to-sixty-hour weeks and having to take second jobs to earn a living wage. The refusal by management to reopen pay talks and its imposition of the pay award, just days before Christmas, have left staff feeling angry and betrayed.”
A National Gallery spokeswoman said, “The gallery will do all it can to keep disruption to the public to a minimum during the industrial action. However, we are hopeful that the gallery will continue to open.”
London mayor Boris Johnson set the London living wage at £7.60 an hour in May 2009. The scheme recommends the minimum wage employees should be paid in London. It is nearly £2 higher than the national minimum wage, which is set at £5.80 ($9.09) per hour for workers over twenty-two years old.
