Image: Natural History Museum by Diliff (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Union members working at the Natural History Museum and Science Museum are expected to walk out later this month.
Outsourced security guards at the Natural History and Science museums, who are members of United Voices of the World (UVW) union, have voted to strike in a dispute over pay and conditions.
In September, security staff outsourced by company Wilson James to the Science Museum, V&A and Natural History Museum announced they would put the strike to its members.
Following a vote, the union reports 96% of its members are in favour of the action which will see them walk out on the weekend of the 25 – 27 of October.
Sempijja Juma, Science Museum security guard and UVW member, explained the motivation for the action: “We are asking for pains to be recognised, the mental and physical pains we go through on a daily basis. We are out, standing and patrolling, in the freezing cold for hours at a time, on the door and in the car park.”
The union’s demands include a pay rise, improvements to the current sick pay scheme and increased annual and compassionate leave. The union’s members have described the latest pay increase as “too little, too late” and are demanding £16 an hour.
Petros Elia, general secretary for UVW, called for the workers to be brought in-house.
Elia said: “The outsourcing of these roles unfairly reduced the guards to second-class workers, cutting them off from the museum’s community, pay scales, and benefits.”
In September during first reports of the story in Advisor, a Wilson James spokesperson said: “We highly value our employees and are committed to fair and transparent negotiations. Our colleagues are respected members of the museum community, valued for their role in keeping national treasures in free-to-access institutions safe and secure, and the decision to outsource services to Wilson James in no way diminishes the importance of their contributions to the museum’s operations.
“We are actively engaged in conversations with our colleagues and trade union representatives at the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and V&A, and remain dedicated to seeking an effective pay resolution.”
