Welsh News

By John Williams (LGBT candidate for the Unite Executive Council) Over 100 health visitors in Unite at Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board (HB) are taking strike action for four weeks at the refusal of the HB to pay them the correct salary based on their qualifications which is costing them between £8000 to £9000 per year. Health visitors do vital ...

By Mariam Kamish, Secretary Caerphilly Trades Council  In scenes of pandemonium, the chair of Caerphilly Council’s Joint Scrutiny Committee shouted me down, demanded I leave the podium, and threatened to have me thrown out of the council’s 2026 budget meeting. I had called on councillors to break ranks and table a motion to overturn last year’s decision to close ten ...

By James Scott, Cardiff University Socialist Students In December, I helped to get a motion passed into Cardiff University Students Union policy, mandating it to lobby the university to ‘open the books’ to its finances, stop academic cuts by using its hundreds of millions of pounds of reserves, and campaign against cuts. Cardiff University announced 400 job cuts in 2025 ...

By Alec Thraves, Swansea Trades Council and Socialist Party After eight days of strike action, over several weeks, Unite bus workers across South West Wales have voted to accept an improved pay offer from First Cymru whose pay and conditions are amongst some the worst in the transport industry. Whilst still short of the pay parity members were seeking, the ...

By Dave Reid (Cardiff Trades Union Council) Unite members working for Cardiff Labour Council’s Telecare Department, supported by other council workers and Cardiff Trades Council, were out lobbying  the Council against the dangerous situations that the council management are putting them into. Telecare workers are dedicated professionals who provide a vital 24 hour emergency response service for 5,000 vulnerable people ...

By Mark Evans, President Swansea Trades Council and retired unison member On October 9th, I highlighted that Health Care Support Workers (HCSW) felt betrayed by the decision of Swansea Bay University Health Board to renege on a local agreement to upgrade these poorly paid employees from Grade 2 to Grade 3. Following a protest outside Morriston Hospital, they held a lobby ...

By Alec Thraves Unite bus workers have begun a series of planned strikes after overwhelminglyrejecting the company’s measly pay offer, their refusal to honour back pay and toimprove poor working conditions.First Cymru is part of the highly profitable First Group transport network which madeover £200 million profit last year.First Cymru is notorious for paying some of the lowest wages in ...

By Dave Bartlett (Secretary, Cardiff Trades Union Council) Around 250 assembled in Merthyr on 25 October for the first ‘all-Wales gathering’ of Your Party. The meeting was led by Beth Winter (former Labour MP) and Mark Serwotka (former general secretary of PCS) who have been given the leadership of Your Party Wales. This was a Your Party Wales event but ...

By Geraint Thomas (Caerphilly Socialist Party) It was a crushing result for the capitalist establishment parties at the Caerphilly Senedd by-election on 23 October. Labour and the Tories together got a combined 13% of the vote. Together, they won the support of barely over 6.5% of the total electorate. Labour’s vote plummeted by 35.4 percentage points. The turnout, at 50.4%, ...

Conference pledges to support only candidates and parties that will stand up for the working class By Dave Warren, PCS Wales and Swansea Trades Council Over 50 trade unionists from 11 unions attended a conference hosted by Cardiff Trades Council on 18 October. The ‘Wales Trade Union Conference on the Crisis of Political Representation’ was endorsed by five trades councils, ...