Science Museum staff vote on strike action

Staff at six English museums are voting on industrial action that could shut down some of the UK’s leading science attractions, in an ongoing dispute over pay.

The Prospect union said that its members at the Science Museum Group—which manages a range of sites across the UK including the Science Museum in London and the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester—will have until 1 July to respond to the ballot, which opened on 10 June. Employees are being balloted on both strike action and action short of strike.

The ballot follows a pay settlement that came into effect in April and saw all employees receive a pay increase of at least 1.5 per cent, with the lowest-paid employees receiving a 6.9 per cent increase. But the union says the settlement was imposed, and the increase is “the latest in a series of below-inflation pay rises which have left workers across the sector with a 13 per cent real-terms pay cut since 2010”.