Palace of Westminster safety employees and DLR cleaners set to strike on New Year’s Eve | EUROtoday

A 12 months stuffed with industrial motion is about to finish with strikes by safety guards and railway cleaners over cost disputes.

Around 300 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, who present safety on the Palace of Westminster, are set to strike on New Year’s Eve.

This will mark their fourth day of commercial motion this 12 months, as they proceed to dispute pay, and phrases and situations.

PCS normal secretary Fran Heathcote stated: “The employer has reduced members’ annual leave and incorrectly claimed that staff had agreed to it.

“The recent cash offer put to workers is nothing short of an insult.”

Cleaning employees on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) will even strike on New Year’s Eve in a separate dispute over pay.

Eddie Dempsey, normal secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, stated: “Cleaning staff on the DLR do a vital job keeping London’s transport network safe, clean, and presentable.

“Transport for London, which oversees outsourcing contracts, must bring these services back in house and pay workers proper sick pay, if we are to avoid these kinds of disruptions in 2026.”

It provides to the persistent wave of strike motion that has unfolded regardless of the Labour authorities’s efforts all year long to fix industrial relations, following a interval marked by in depth strikes beneath the earlier Conservative authorities.

Among the long-running disputes which have characterised 2025 are these involving resident medical doctors, Birmingham refuse collectors, and drivers on Hull Trains.