Over 300 Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members at the British Library are to strike from Monday 27 October until Sunday 9 November.
The strike coincides with the two-year anniversary of a cyber-attack where staff members’ personal data was leaked on to the ‘dark web’, as well as the opening of a major new exhibition, ‘Secret Maps’.
The PCS members at the British Library voted 98.23% in favour of industrial action on a turnout of 75.17% in a ballot which closed on Monday.
The dispute centres on the organisation’s failure to offer an above-inflation pay award for a second consecutive year.
In a recent survey of British Library members, PCS found that most workers struggle each month to make ends meet.
While the British Library initially proposed a pay award of 2%, with some receiving as little as 1.6%, it has since increased the offer to 2.4%.
In a win for PCS, the British Library has now gone back on plans to offer £5,000 in annual bonuses to directors as part of a ‘restructure’.
The strike decision was announced after PCS went public about the proposed restructure which would have seen the director team double, while offering workers a below-inflation pay award.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: ‘A near unanimous vote for strike action is just a small glimpse into the strength of feeling among our members at the British Library.
‘They are livid at yet another insulting pay offer that does little to alleviate the health problems that many suffer from because of low pay.
‘Nor does it come close to ending the need for many to work second jobs and take out loans to pay their bills and meet their housing costs.
‘The employer’s well-paid executives need to take the blinkers off and understand that our hard-working members are what makes the British Library the vital cultural institution that it is.’
PCS members at the four Tate gallery sites are also voting for strike action in a ballot that opened on Tuesday, 14 October.
Over 130 PCS members working at Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, as well as Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, are some of the lowest paid workers and have already indicated in a consultative ballot that they are prepared to take strike action over pay.
The Tate initially offered just 2% pay increase for 2025/26.
This has now been increased to 3% but is still way lower than the Civil Service Pay Remit and does not address the issues of low pay at the institution.
Staff have already undergone a ‘restructure’ this year (the second since 2020), which saw redundancies across the whole organisation, as well as the closure of staff canteens at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, which included subsidised meals for staff.
It also involved the withdrawal of access to the Civil Service Pension Scheme for new starters, replacing it with a plan offering significantly weaker terms.
The postal ballot for strike action closes on 11 November at noon.
Culture group president Hannah David said: ‘Tate staff have shown incredible dedication in keeping Tate’s doors open, welcoming visitors, and caring for the nation’s art, at this internationally eminent gallery.
‘Despite this, they have been subject to years of cuts, downgraded pensions, and below-inflation pay offers which have left workers struggling day-to-day.
‘Meanwhile, senior leaders continue to reward themselves handsomely, taking home total remuneration packages ranging from £195,000 to £320,000. This cannot continue.
‘This ballot is a necessary step in showing senior management that Tate workers will no longer tolerate being treated as dispensable.’
Referring back to their previous dispute with the galleries, the union called the pay offer ‘just the latest attack on Tate workers’ pay and terms and conditions over the past five years’.
Tate is one of 15 state-sponsored galleries and museums, with fellow recipients of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) support including the V&A museum.
Earlier this year, Tate’s annual report revealed that the government, which provided it with £50.8 million grant-in-aid funding in 2023/24, pledged to keep the organisation afloat as it attempts to move to ‘a new financially sustainable business model’ while operating a deficit budget for the current financial year.
Tate recently made reductions to its staffing across its locations, cutting overall staff numbers by 7%, while in June, it unveiled plans to raise £150m in the next five years through a US-style endowment fund, with director Maria Balshaw saying it would create ‘a sustained source of income that will be protected, whether economic times are good or difficult’.
PCS leader Heathcote accused Tate of allowing staff members to live on the breadline, saying: ‘Senior management at Tate spend millions acquiring new artworks while allowing many of our members to fall into in-work poverty.
‘Food prices, rent, energy bills, and transport costs are all surging, but they expect our members to live off crumbs.’
- Equity has threatened strike action over tech and entertainment companies’ use of its members’ likenesses, images and voices in AI content without permission.
The union said on Tuesday that growing numbers of its members have complained about infringements of their copyright and misuse of their personal data in AI material.
Equity general secretary, Paul W Fleming, said the union plans to coordinate data requests en masse to companies to force them to disclose whether they have used members’ data in AI-generated material without consent.
Last week the union confirmed it was supporting a Scottish actor who believes her image was used in the creation of the ‘AI actor Tilly Norwood,’ which has been widely condemned by the film industry.
Briony Monroe, 28, from East Renfrewshire, said she believed that an image of her face had been used to make the digital character, created by the AI ‘talent studio’ Xicoia, which has denied her claims.
Fleming said: ‘The companies actually became very willing to start discussing compensation and usage. So the industry needs to be more careful because it’s not going to stop there.
‘AI companies need to know that we will be putting in these subject access requests en masse. They have a statutory obligation to respond. If an individual member reasonably believes that their data is being used without their consent, we want to find out.
‘What we’re trying to do is use people’s individual rights to make it so hard for tech companies and producers to not enter into collective rights.
‘It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not easy to do because they may well have got data from somewhere else. A lot of people are behaving very recklessly and immorally.’
