The dispute over the privatisation of some of the National Gallery’s visitor services continues, The Guardian reports. The institution just secured a contract with Securitas, one of Britain’s largest security firms, worth £40 million over the next five years, while the gallery staff announces a series of strike and a planned full stoppage from mid-August.
The gallery once again assured that the transition would not cause any redundancy or change of salary, but merely a change of supervision: the 300 gallery assistants concerned would remain at the gallery but work for Securitas. Mark Serwotka, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) general secretary deplores that ‘while PCS continues to try to reach a negotiated settlement, gallery management has pressed on with privatisation without any further engagement with the union’.
31 July 2015.
