Hello, and welcome to Union News for Saturday 7 November 2026.
This week, we’re looking at a major day of industrial action in France, a new strike by hospital consultants, and NHS managers spending enormous sums on outsourcing while workers fight for money they say they’re owed.
We’ll also be visiting university picket lines, looking at a remarkable dispute involving a dismissed union representative in Leicester, and reporting on care workers fighting for equal pay.
Let’s get started.
France — a country takes to the streets
We begin across the Channel, where French workers are taking part in a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations. Five major union organisations — the CGT, CFDT, FO, UNSA and FSU — have joined forces to oppose government austerity measures.
The French government’s proposed budget involves savings of around 54 billion euros. Unions are demanding higher wages, protection for public services, better pensions and a serious commitment to French industry.
Students have joined the protests, bringing together workers and younger people concerned about their futures.
It’s an impressive mobilisation.
Now, the French have a reputation for taking to the streets when governments threaten their living standards. Some British commentators rather sneer at this.
I take a different view.
French workers understand that social rights were won through struggle, not handed down by generous politicians. They also understand that unions are considerably stronger when they act together.
There’s something we could learn from that.
Too often, British unions fight separate battles in separate industries, even when they’re confronting the same policies. Austerity, insecure employment and the erosion of wages aren’t isolated problems. They’re connected.
And the response needs to recognise that.
Hospital consultants announce November strike
Back in Britain, hospital consultants in England have announced two days of strike action on 25 and 26 November.
The British Medical Association, or BMA, says the dispute has continued for 18 months without meaningful progress. Consultants have experienced approximately 25 per cent erosion in the real value of their pay over 17 years.
The government has proposed a 2.4 per cent uplift for the next pay round. The BMA argues that this would represent another real-terms reduction.
But the dispute isn’t simply about money.
Consultants are also concerned about excessive workloads, burnout, insufficient time for training and research, and the demands placed on doctors working outside normal hours.
Emergency care will continue during the strikes, with arrangements similar to those provided on Christmas Day.
Whenever doctors take industrial action, we’re told to think about patients. Of course we should.
But we should also think about what happens when experienced doctors leave the NHS, when departments become understaffed and when exhausted medical professionals are expected to do ever more with less.
The NHS depends on skilled people. If we don’t retain them, we’re not protecting the service. We’re slowly undermining it.
The government still has time to negotiate. It should use it.
NHS outsourcing — money for contractors, but not workers?
Staying with the health service, blood sciences staff in Lancashire are taking further strike action over unpaid overtime, holiday pay and sickness-related payments.
The Unite union says workers have been denied money they’re entitled to receive. Strike action is scheduled throughout November, including this week.
But here’s the extraordinary part.
Unite says the NHS trust has spent more than £1 million outsourcing work during the dispute, at a reported cost of around £60,000 a week.
Management argues that outsourcing is necessary to maintain essential testing services and protect patients. I understand that hospitals must keep critical services running.
But surely we should be asking whether the money being spent on contractors might have been better used resolving the underlying dispute.
Unite says management discussed a settlement before withdrawing from meaningful engagement. If that’s correct, it reflects very poorly on the employer.
And it illustrates something I’ve seen repeatedly in industrial relations. When workers ask for money they’re owed, we’re told budgets are tight. Yet when management wants consultants, contractors or agency staff to replace those workers, substantial sums suddenly become available.
Public money should be spent providing public services, not prolonging avoidable disputes.
University staff fight for jobs and education
Across Britain’s universities, industrial disputes are continuing over redundancies, restructuring and worsening working conditions.
At Glasgow Caledonian University, staff represented by the EIS University Lecturers Association have been striking this week against plans threatening up to 100 jobs.
Management has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies. The university points to financial pressures, including a projected funding shortfall. But unions have questioned why such substantial cuts are necessary when the institution has significant reserves.
At the University of Nottingham, UCU members are engaged in prolonged strike action over compulsory redundancies and proposed course closures. The union argues that management has failed to justify the scale of its proposals or properly consider alternatives.
And at Goldsmiths, University of London, the confrontation has become particularly bitter. Staff are fighting cuts of around £20 million. The dispute escalated after management imposed 100 per cent pay deductions on employees taking part in action short of a strike.
UCU regards this as an effective lockout. Some students have complained about the loss of teaching, while also expressing sympathy with the striking staff.
There are genuine financial difficulties across higher education. Nobody should pretend otherwise.
But what kind of university system are we creating if experienced academics are dismissed, departments disappear and the remaining staff are expected to carry impossible workloads?
Education is not simply another commercial product. A university is supposed to preserve knowledge, develop skills and encourage independent thought. That requires investment in people.
Cutting staff may produce a short-term saving on a balance sheet. The damage to teaching, research and Britain’s intellectual life could last much longer.
Leicester — a union representative dismissed
Now to a dispute which deserves particular attention from trade unionists.
At Ash Field Academy, a special educational needs school in Leicester, Unison members are fighting for the reinstatement of their workplace representative, Tom Barker.
Tom was suspended in October last year, shortly after staff voted for industrial action over staffing levels and workloads. Following an investigation lasting approximately 11 months, he was dismissed on 29 September.
Unison maintains that the allegations were made in bad faith and that Tom has been victimised because of his trade union activity. The employer disputes the union’s position, and the allegations themselves remain contested.
But the sequence of events raises serious questions.
Here we have a union representative involved in organising workers over staffing and safety concerns. Soon afterwards, he is suspended. An exceptionally long investigation follows, ending in dismissal.
His colleagues have refused to abandon him. They held their sixteenth day of strike action yesterday, with supporters joining a rally demanding his reinstatement.
I have enormous respect for that solidarity.
A workplace representative is often the person who challenges management when nobody else feels able to do so. If representatives can be removed simply because they organise effectively, the rights of every worker are weakened.
Of course, union representatives are not above legitimate disciplinary procedures. But neither should disciplinary procedures be used to suppress legitimate trade union activity.
Whatever the eventual outcome, this dispute demonstrates how much workers value representation they’re prepared to defend.
Oldham care workers demand equal treatment
Finally, in Oldham, more than 80 care workers employed by council-owned provider MioCare have been taking strike action over pay and sick leave.
Unison says some workers receive £2.10 an hour less than colleagues elsewhere in the same organisation, despite carrying out similar duties. They also want access to a sick pay scheme already enjoyed by other MioCare employees.
These workers support vulnerable people in assisted housing. It’s demanding work, involving considerable responsibility. And yet once again we’re discussing people who provide essential care while struggling to secure fair treatment themselves.
The absence of adequate sick pay is especially troubling. Care workers shouldn’t have to choose between recovering from illness and paying their bills.
Nor should people doing substantially comparable work find themselves on markedly different terms without a convincing explanation.
The workers have now taken several rounds of industrial action. Their demands are straightforward. Equal treatment, decent sick pay and recognition of the work they do.
Those shouldn’t be unreasonable expectations in any workplace, particularly one owned by a local authority.
Closing
That’s all for this edition of Union News.
We’ve covered some very different workplaces today — hospitals, universities, schools and care services — along with the extraordinary mobilisation taking place in France.
But there’s a common thread. Workers are increasingly challenging decisions made over their heads, whether those involve pay, staffing levels, job security or the right to organise.
Sometimes those disputes concern large sums of money. Sometimes they concern a relatively small difference in hourly pay. And sometimes they’re about something even more fundamental — the right of workers to choose representatives and defend them.
That’s what trade unionism is about.
