THE Welsh Assembly reconvened yesterday amid a noisy protest by museum workers staging an all-out strike over a huge pay cut.

Workers from museums and cultural sites across Wales, including former miners who now work as guides at the Big Pit National Coal Museum, rallied on the steps of the Senedd as AMs took their seats for the first time since last week’s elections.

They called on Carwyn Jones to honour a pre-election pledge to personally intervene in the dispute if Labour held on to Cardiff Bay.

Hannah Lawson, who works at the Waterfront Museum in Swansea, told the Star: “We’ve come down to show them that we’re not going anywhere and to remind Carwyn Jones that he did make a promise that if he was re-elected he would intervene to help find a solution.”

Mr Jones made the pledge in discussions with PCS union reps at the start of all-out strike action exactly two weeks ago.
It was assumed his re-election as First Minister would be a formality despite Labour’s lack of an overall majority.

But the vote was unexpectedly tied 29-29 as Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood won backing from Tory and Ukip AMs, with the only Lib Dem member backing Mr Jones. New Presiding Officer Elin Jones decided AMs were unlikely to change their minds and adjourned the assembly. If there’s no agreement in 28 days there will have to be new elections.

That will now delay the formation of a government and the response to a dispute which has already rumbled on for two years — the longest since the Welsh Assembly was created in 1999.

It was sparked after National Museum Wales bosses announced they would be removing the premium pay rate for weekend working.
“These payments are worth up to 15 per cent of the wages of our lowest paid staff — cleaners, cafe staff, front of house staff,” explained Ms Lawson.

“But of course not for management because they don’t work weekends, they’re at home with their families.”

Mr Jones has told PCS that their dispute will be the “first thing on the agenda” when a government is finally formed in the coming days.
PCS Wales secretary Shavanah Taj said: “This campaign has shown us that if you listen to your members, their ideas, as long as you organise —campaign, fight, bargain — not beg, you can win and you can make positive change.”
lukejames@peoples-press.com