Unions suspend planned V&A strike after improved pay offer

A planned strike at the V&A over half-term has been suspended after an improved offer from its management.Museum staff who were members of the Prospect and Public and Commercial Services (PCS) unions had voted to strike on Thursday and Friday in a dispute over pay and working conditions including inadequate toilet and hydration breaks. The strike would have closed the V&A’s main galleries in south Kensington, as well as V&A East, V&A Storehouse and Young V&A in east London.The strike was suspended on Monday pending last-minute talks with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, after the V&A management made an undisclosed improved offer.In a statement PCS said it had suspended strikes planned for 29 and 30 October “to allow Acas-facilitated talks to take place, following an improved offer from the museum”.Prospect and the V&A also confirmed the strike had been suspended while negotiations continued.

Neither union nor the V&A would confirm details of the improved offer. A source said: “We aren’t sharing details of the offer at this stage, other than we have re-entered negotiations.”The unions are demanding a 4% pay increase for staff earning above the living wage, and for the V&A to become an accredited London living-wage employer within 12 months.

They also want time-and-a-half pay for bank holiday working.On conditions, they are seeking improvements to working during heatwaves and better food at the museum’s east London sites. In July, when staff first voted to strike, a V&A spokesperson said “extensive measures” had been introduced to help staff during the heatwave.

These included additional rest breaks and closing some galleries during the hottest periods.Earlier this month, Prospect’s general secretary, Mike Clancy, called on the V&A’s director, Tristram Hunt, a former Labour MP, to get involved in the negotiations.He said: “Prospect members are dedicated to their jobs, and it is these dedicated staff who make the museum the world-class attraction it is. That Tristram Hunt can’t even be bothered to take part in the negotiations himself shows the level of disdain in which he holds his staff.”The London living wage is now £15.45 an hour.

While the V&A has said all its staff are paid at least this rate, some of the museum’s outsourced contractors are not. V&A Dundee, which is not involved in the dispute, is an accredited living-wage employer.