Barnet UNISON

Ian Hodson – National President of the BFAWU

Monday 05 October 2026

 

#McStrike Is Back — This Time to End, Not Defend

Some campaigns belong to a moment. Others create an identity that workers recognise long after the placards have been put away.

 

#McStrike did that.

 

When McDonald’s workers first took strike action, they challenged one of the biggest corporations in the world over low pay, insecure work and a basic demand every worker should expect — dignity and respect at work.

 

They were workers many said were impossible to organise. Yet they organised, found their collective voice and put conditions in the fast-food industry onto the national agenda.

 

They demonstrated something the trade union movement should never forget.

 

Worker power isn’t granted. It’s built.

 

Now #McStrike is back.

On Tuesday 6 October, we are returning to McDonald’s Head Office in East Finchley alongside End Not Defend.

 

This time our message is simple.

 

Nobody should have to endure sexual harassment just to earn a living.

 

For too long workplace sexual harassment has primarily been treated as an individual grievance. Something happens, the worker reports it, HR investigates and a process begins.

But by then the harm has already happened.

 

End Not Defend starts somewhere different.

 

If something arising from work can cause physical or psychological harm, employers should identify the risk, assess it and take steps to prevent workers being exposed to it.

Sexual harassment is a workplace health and safety hazard.

 

What has happened at McDonald’s demonstrates why this matters.

 

In 2023, McDonald’s Restaurants Limited entered into a legally binding agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission following concerns about the handling of sexual-harassment complaints made by staff.

 

In 2025, that agreement was extended with a strengthened action plan following further serious allegations.

 

The EHRC has also written to McDonald’s franchisees reminding them of their legal responsibilities. Its preventative approach includes regular risk assessments identifying where sexual harassment could occur.

 

So if employers should assess the risk, why aren’t we treating sexual harassment properly as a workplace safety risk?

 

Our current system too often places the burden on the worker who has already experienced the harm.

 

Report it. Prove it. Go through an investigation. Challenge the outcome. Potentially pursue legal action.

 

We need to turn that approach around.

 

Employers should identify risks before workers are harmed. Workers need safe and trusted ways to report concerns. Patterns of harassment should not disappear into confidential HR processes. Regulators need the information and powers to intervene.

 

That is what End Not Defend means.

 

Prevent the harm. Don’t defend the failure.

 

There is a reason we’re bringing these campaigns together.

McStrike wasn’t simply about wages. It was about power.

 

Sexual harassment is easier to hide where workers feel isolated or frightened that speaking out could cost them hours, opportunities or their job.

 

Collective organisation changes that balance of power.

 

On Tuesday 6 October at 6pm, we’re going back to McDonald’s Head Office.

The golden arches became a symbol workers turned on its head once before.

 

We’re turning them around again.

 

I BACK THE WORKERS.

 

#McStrike is back.

 

END NOT DEFEND.

Click this link to join the meeting

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Monday 7th September 2026

Weekly Blog — speaking truth to power – Restructures what are your rights.

 

Restructures are happening across this council all the time, in some corner of the organisation or another. Most members never think about the process until the day it lands on their own desk. By then it’s too late to learn the rules from scratch. So, this week I want to set out plainly what happens when your service is restructured, what rights you actually have, and why the moment to get in touch with us is the day you hear the word “restructure,” not the day you get a letter about redundancy.

 

What actually happens

When management propose a restructure, they’re supposed to consult you formally before anything is decided. That means at least ten days’ notice of the meeting where consultation starts, and a proper written pack explaining what’s changing and why. Before that meeting even happens, we as your union should be briefed by management so we know what’s coming.

 

Once consultation opens, anyone whose post might go gets told individually that they’re “at risk.” That’s not the same as being made redundant. It means your post is on the list for job matching, where your current role gets compared against roles in the new structure. If there’s a close enough match, you slot straight in. If there are fewer posts than people, you go into a ring-fenced selection process instead.

 

Only after all of that is exhausted, if there’s genuinely no role for you, does redundancy notice get issued. And even then, you stay eligible for redeployment right up to your last day.

 

Where it can go wrong for you

On paper this all sounds fair. In practice, it depends entirely on management doing it properly, and on you knowing your rights well enough to hold them to it. You’re entitled to bring a union rep into every meeting, formal or informal. If you move to a lower graded post through this process, pay protection should apply. If you disagree with a job match, you’ve got fourteen calendar days to appeal it. If you’re made redundant, you’ve got fourteen calendar days to appeal that too. Calendar days, not working days, so a letter that lands on a Friday eats into your weekend as well.

 

Fourteen days sounds like plenty until you’re the one staring at a letter you don’t fully understand, trying to work out if the process was followed correctly. Most of the mistakes I see aren’t made deliberately. They happen because nobody was checking the detail at the time it mattered, and by the time someone does check, the clock has already run down.

 

That’s the whole point of getting us involved early. We can’t fix a flawed process after the decision’s been rubber-stamped nearly as easily as we can shape it while it’s still open.

 

So if your service is facing change, or you’ve had any hint that it might, don’t wait for a formal letter. Contact your steward or the branch office as soon as you hear anything, even if it’s only rumour at this stage. We’d rather talk you through ten false alarms than find out about a genuine one after the appeal deadline’s gone.

 

Take care of yourselves and each other.

 

Best wishes John Burgess Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON

Monday 24 August 2026

Weekly Blog — speaking truth to power – A warning for every council worker

Something has been happening quietly in the Passenger Transport Service that every Barnet council worker needs to know about. It does not just affect Passenger Assistants. It sets a precedent that could affect any of us.

 

What has been going on

In 2017 a decision was taken — without any consultation with UNISON or GMB — that when Passenger Assistant posts became vacant through retirement or resignation, they would not be refilled with directly employed LBB staff. Instead, the work would be picked up by external providers.

 

Nobody announced this. Nobody brought it to a JNCC. No business case was published. No equality assessment was carried out. It just happened, post by post, year by year.

In January 2021 there were approximately 85 directly employed LBB Passenger Assistants. There are now 42. The work has not reduced. The service still runs over 100 routes that need Passenger Assistant support. The workers have simply been replaced.

 

We have now had this confirmed in writing by management. When we asked who is doing the work that LBB Passenger Assistants used to do, the answer came back: 61 workers employed by external private providers contracted by the Council.

 

That is not gap-filling. That is not flexible provision. That is outsourcing — and it has been done without any of the process that outsourcing requires.

 

Why this should worry you, wherever you work

This is not just a Passenger Transport story. The method matters.

Management found a way to run down an in-house workforce without ever formally proposing to outsource it. No Cabinet report saying we want to contract this service out. No consultation with the unions. No equality impact assessment on what it means for a low-paid, predominantly female workforce. Just a quiet decision to stop recruiting, and wait.

 

By the time anyone noticed, 60% of the Passenger Assistant function was being delivered by workers employed by private companies rather than by the Council.

 

Ask yourself this. What stops the same approach being used in your service? If management decided tomorrow to stop filling vacancies in your team and use contractors instead, this is now the precedent they would point to. UNISON is not prepared to let that stand unchallenged.

 

What UNISON has done and where we are

We have submitted a formal report to the highest level of joint negotiation with the Council — the JNCG, chaired by the Chief Executive. That report sets out the full picture: the workforce figures, the governance failures, the health and safety concerns, the breach of the Trade Union Engagement Framework the Council signed just last December.

 

We submitted that report in June. We are now in August. We have still not received a substantive response.

 

We have also formally asked management a question they have not answered: when did LBB last directly recruit a Passenger Assistant? The answer to that question will tell us exactly when the decision was made that this workforce would be wound down. We intend to find out.

This matter is going to JNCC as a formal agenda item. We are not dropping it.

 

What members can do

If you are a Passenger Assistant or Passenger Escort, or you know someone who is, please get in touch with the branch. Your experience of what has changed in this service matters and we want to hear it.

If you work in any other part of the Council and you have noticed posts in your team sitting vacant for long periods without being advertised, let us know. We want to understand whether what has happened in Passenger Transport is happening anywhere else.

 

The council workforce is strongest when we look out for each other. What happens to one group of workers today can happen to another group tomorrow.

 

Best wishes John Burgess Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON