TBG UNISON members formal strike ballot looms
Barnet Voice TBG Ballot ready
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Category: Trades Dispute
Depot workers strike ballot opens 5 August 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — 17 JULY 2026 BARNET HOUSING AND CARE WORKERS MOVE TOWARDS STRIKE BALLOTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — 17 JULY 2026
BARNET HOUSING AND CARE WORKERS MOVE TOWARDS STRIKE BALLOTS
Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet workers say “Enough is Enough” after TBG refuses to negotiate on pay, terms and pensions.
Barnet UNISON is preparing to request two separate formal industrial action ballots for members working in Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet, following a Special JNCC meeting with The Barnet Group today.
UNISON reported the results of two separate consultative ballots:
- 97% of Your Choice Barnet members voted for industrial action
- 100% of Barnet Homes members voted for industrial action
Despite these results, The Barnet Group confirmed at the meeting that it was not willing to negotiate on any part of UNISON’s claims.
The claims cover:
- a proper pay increase, including a £15-an-hour minimum
- improved terms and conditions
- movement towards council-standard terms
- access to the Local Government Pension Scheme
Barnet UNISON formally registered a failure to agree at the Special JNCC and advised TBG that the branch will now seek approval for separate statutory industrial action ballots for housing workers and care workers.
A Barnet Homes worker said:
“We deliver council housing services, but we are not treated like council workers. We work longer hours, receive worse terms and have no access to LGPS. Members have had enough of being told there is never any money for us.”
A Your Choice Barnet care worker said:
“We support vulnerable adults every day, often under huge physical and emotional pressure. Then we go home worrying about rent, food and bills. We are doing essential work in one of the most expensive cities in the world, but we are still treated as second-class.”
Helen Davies, Barnet UNISON Branch Chair and UNISON SGE representative for London, said:
“These ballot results send a powerful message. Housing and care workers are angry, organised and no longer prepared to accept second-class treatment. TBG has rejected every part of the claim and has now refused to negotiate, even after hearing that members are ready to take action. Enough is enough. Barnet Council owns The Barnet Group and cannot stand back while the workers delivering its services are treated this way.”
Barnet UNISON is calling on The Barnet Group and the London Borough of Barnet to return to negotiations with a serious proposal before the dispute escalates further.
Notes to editors
- The Barnet Group is wholly owned by the London Borough of Barnet.
- Barnet Homes provides housing services.
- Your Choice Barnet provides adult social care services.
- The consultative ballots were separate from the formal statutory industrial action ballots now being prepared.
- Industrial action has not yet been authorised or called.
Media enquiries: contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
BARNET COUNCIL QUIETLY HALVED ITS PASSENGER ASSISTANT WORKFORCE — AND NEVER TOLD THE UNION
BARNET COUNCIL QUIETLY HALVED ITS PASSENGER ASSISTANT WORKFORCE — AND NEVER TOLD THE UNION
Trade union demands answers on outsourcing by stealth and the employment standards of workers supporting children with complex SEN needs
Barnet UNISON has formally challenged London Borough of Barnet and BELS management over the steady dismantling of the directly employed Passenger Assistant workforce — the staff who accompany children with special educational needs on school transport routes across the borough every day.
The directly employed workforce has been cut from approximately 85 in January 2021 to 42 today — a reduction of more than 50%. There are now 61 externally commissioned Passenger Assistants working on regular routes, outnumbering directly employed council staff. The council’s own documents confirm that vacancies have not been routinely refilled and that commissioned workers are used to meet continuing demand. No formal outsourcing exercise took place. No trade union consultation happened. No equality impact assessment was carried out.
Outsourcing in all but name
UNISON’s formal response — submitted to the JNCG chaired by the Chief Executive on 16 June 2026 — sets out that the council has effectively outsourced a public service through attrition: allowing permanent posts to disappear and replacing them with externally commissioned workers, without ever putting that decision to elected members as a workforce question or consulting the trade union.
A Cabinet report in May 2025 approved an external provider framework worth up to £1 million per year — £8 million over eight years. The same report records “None” under Consultation. The council is now saying that restoring direct employment would cost £225,000 per year more than the current model. That comparison has never been presented to Cabinet.
UNISON Branch Secretary John Burgess said: “The council hasn’t formally outsourced this service — it’s just stopped replacing people when they leave and handed the work to external providers instead. The outcome is the same. You’ve gone from 85 directly employed staff to 42, with 61 commissioned workers on regular routes doing the same job. No consultation, no equality assessment, no transparency. We need a straight answer: does the council intend to keep an in-house Passenger Assistant service or doesn’t it?”
Workers’ terms and conditions unknown
UNISON does not know what pay, sick pay, pension provision or continuity protections apply to the 61 commissioned Passenger Assistants currently working on regular routes. At the JNCG on 15 June, management confirmed they could not say what sick pay arrangements applied to commissioned workers.
For Passenger Assistants working daily with children who have complex health conditions and, in some cases, compromised immune systems, that is a direct health and safety concern. Workers without occupational sick pay are more likely to come in when unwell.
UNISON has also raised serious questions about health and safety incident reporting. Three separate reporting channels exist across the split management structure — none of them currently provides a complete picture of incidents involving Passenger Escorts on PTS routes. Management acknowledged at the JNCG that near misses are likely under-reported.
The Trade Union Engagement Framework, signed by the Chief Executive in December 2024, commits the council to sharing information with trade unions on service reviews and outsourcing matters, consulting on decisions affecting staffing, and giving serious consideration to keeping services in-house. UNISON has identified seven specific provisions that have not been honoured in this case. None of them were disputed at the JNCG.
A conflict of interest at the heart of the service
UNISON has also raised a structural concern about BELS’s role in the service. BELS simultaneously decides which routes are needed, manages contracts with external Passenger Assistant providers, and line-manages the directly employed LBB Passenger Assistants whose work the external contracts are displacing. UNISON has asked whether that arrangement has ever been subject to a formal governance review.
John Burgess added: “These are some of Barnet’s most vulnerable children. They build relationships with their Passenger Escorts over years. The council cannot say these workers are part of a commissioned model and then refuse to account for the employment standards that apply to them. We don’t know if they’re being paid the London Living Wage. We don’t know if they have sick pay. We don’t know what happens to a child’s regular escort if that worker isn’t available. That is not good enough.”
UNISON has set a 20-working day deadline for written responses. If those responses are not received, UNISON has indicated it will treat the matter as a formal failure to agree and will pursue the available routes.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Barnet UNISON represents approximately 3,000 members across the London Borough of Barnet, including employees of the council itself, its local authority trading companies (The Barnet Group and Barnet Education and Learning Services), schools, FE colleges, care services, environmental services, depots, and a range of contractors and outsourced providers.
The Passenger Transport Service provides school transport for children with special educational needs across 133 routes in Barnet.
The Trade Union Engagement Framework was signed by the Chief Executive of London Borough of Barnet in December 2024.
UNISON is separately pursuing an equal pay claim on behalf of more than 700 members against LBB, The Barnet Group, and BELS, with a preliminary Employment Tribunal hearing listed for September 2026.
Contact: Barnet UNISON — contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
Cost of Living Crisis: What Barnet UNISON Is Doing — and Why Your Vote Matters
Every week Barnet UNISON speaks to members who are doing essential public service work — and struggling to make ends meet. That should never be normal. Yet in one of the most expensive cities in the world, too many Barnet workers are facing rising rents, higher food bills, increased energy costs, and transport fares that keep going up while pay falls behind.
We are seeing the reality on the ground: members skipping meals, taking second jobs, worrying about heating bills, and telling us they feel worse off now than at any time in their working lives.
Barnet UNISON has not stood back and watched this happen. We have built a coordinated Cost-of-Living response based on organising, bargaining and legal challenge. We are currently running ten separate cost-of-living campaigns across the employers where our members work.
Our 10 Cost of Living Campaigns
1. Equal Pay campaign across three employers
2. Pay claim for housing workers
3. Terms and conditions claim for housing workers
4. LGPS pension claim for housing workers
5. Pay claim for care workers
6. Terms and conditions claim for care workers
7. LGPS pension claim for care workers
8. Holiday payments claim for Barnet Council workers
9. Holiday payments claim for housing and care workers
10. Pay claim for outsourced cleaners
This is one of the most extensive cost-of-living responses our branch has ever mounted. It reflects what members have told us repeatedly: the problem is not one single issue — it is pay, pensions, insecure terms, unpaid entitlements, and historic inequality all combining to squeeze household incomes.
Low Pay in a High-Cost City: The Reality
Low pay is not accidental. It grows when employers hold down wages, delay reviews, outsource services, and maintain unequal pay structures.
Meanwhile, the cost of living in London continues to rise. Housing costs remain among the highest in the country. Inflation over recent years has pushed up the price of everyday essentials. When wages lag behind prices year after year, workers get poorer even while working just as hard — or harder — than before.
That is not sustainable for individuals, for families, or for the services we provide.
What the Union Is Doing — and What Happens Next
Our job as your union is to turn frustration into leverage. That means submitting claims, negotiating firmly, campaigning publicly, using legal routes where appropriate, and — when members support it — preparing for industrial action.
Across all ten campaigns, we are pressing employers to negotiate seriously and settle fairly. Some campaigns focus on immediate pay uplift. Others address structural unfairness that has cost members money over many years. All are about restoring value to your work.
The Most Important Message: Members Decide
There is one point we want to be absolutely clear about:
Members decide.
Ballots matter. Consultations matter. Voting matters. Whether a claim settles, escalates, or moves to the next stage depends on member participation and member votes.
The future of each of these campaigns will not be decided in a boardroom alone — it will be determined by how members vote.
When we organise and vote together, we are strongest.
End.
PRESS RELEASE: Equal Pay Momentum Builds in Barnet – Care and School Staff Sign Up in Their Hundreds
Barnet UNISON has revealed a surge of support for its Equal Pay campaign, with hundreds of care workers and school support staff already signed up and hundreds more contacting the branch to join the claim.
Across Barnet’s schools, care homes, and community services, women workers are taking action to protect their legal rights to equal pay.
UNISON says that the growing number of sign-ups shows the level of frustration among staff who have seen their real pay fall while the cost of living continues to rise.
Helen Davies, Branch Chair of Barnet UNISON, said:
“Our members have seen what’s happened in Southampton and Sheffield — ordinary council workers winning millions in back pay.
Now Barnet’s care workers and school staff are saying loud and clear: we deserve fairness too.”
The Equal Pay campaign has seen record engagement, with UNISON visiting schools and care workplaces across the borough to help staff complete their case forms and understand their rights under the Equality Act.
Helen Davies added:
“This is just the beginning.
Every week more members are signing up because they know that in a cost-of-living crisis, no one can afford to miss out on what they’re owed.”
📅 Equal Pay Surgeries: Every Tuesday in October
📍 UNISON Office, Colindale
📧 contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
END.
PRESS RELEASE: Barnet UNISON: We Will Not Be Silenced by Facility Time Cuts
On 1 August 2025, Barnet Council went ahead with a 33% cut to Barnet UNISON’s facility time.
This is an attack on our ability to support, defend, and organise our members. It is a political choice that takes us back to Tory-era cuts, at precisely the moment when staff are under the most pressure.
What the cut means for members
Facility time is what allows us to:
- Represent members being bullied, harassed or disrespected at work
- Defend those facing disciplinary investigations and dismissal
- Support members who are not being paid properly
- Take on cases of discrimination and racism
- Challenge unsafe workloads, stress and health & safety risks
With a 33% cut, our ability to respond will be slowed down. Members may wait longer for casework support. Some of the key meetings and consultations we should be present in will be harder to attend.
But let’s be crystal clear: this cut will not gag Barnet UNISON. We will continue to speak out and fight back against the appalling issues our members face every single day.
The wider context
This cut comes when:
The Council has just come through a financial crisis so severe it applied for Exceptional Financial Support (EFS).
Consultants such as PeopleToo are embedded in the Council, planning further restructures and potential redundancies.
UNISON has confirmed a major Equal Pay case, which we are pursuing to protect the rights and pay of our lowest-paid workers.
Our branch is leading campaigns to defend frontline services, stop unsafe workloads, resist outsourcing, and protect the rights of disabled staff.
In other words, the demand on UNISON is growing—yet the Council has chosen to reduce the time we have to represent staff.
Our response
We are not naïve. We know the impact of this cut will be felt in longer waits, heavier workloads for our reps, and an increase in pressure. But this branch has been here before. We survived outsourcing, mass redundancies, austerity, and Tory attacks—and we are still here, still fighting.
- This cut will not break us.
- This cut will not silence us.
- This cut will not stop Barnet UNISON organising.
A call for solidarity
We are calling on:
- Our members: Stand with your branch. Show your support. Step up as reps or contacts in your teams. Together, we are stronger.
- The wider trade union movement: Send messages of solidarity and amplify our campaign. Cuts to facility time anywhere are an attack on union rights everywhere.
- Labour councillors, MPs, and activists: Show that Labour values mean standing with unions, not undermining them.
📩 Send solidarity to: contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
We’ve been here before – and we always have your backs
Barnet UNISON has faced attacks before, and every time we have come through stronger—because we never forget why we are here.
- We are here to protect our members.
- We are here to organise in every workplace.
- We are here to speak truth to power.
No cut, no Council, no employer will ever take that away from us.
We will always have the backs of our members.
In solidarity,
Barnet UNISON
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED : Potential Equal Pay Claim
As you may be aware, there has been a lot of recent activity regarding potential equal pay claims in the London Borough of Barnet (LBB).
As the UK’s largest union, UNISON has led on equal pay within local government for over a decade and has recovered £millions in compensation for our members. We take the issue extremely seriously.
We appreciate that the prospect of being underpaid due to your gender in a cost-of-living crisis is especially emotive, however, Equal Pay legislation is complex, and UNISON has been carrying out investigations into a number of discriminatory pay practices that have been identified.
We wanted to understand the facts and consider the legal position so we can advise members appropriately. As a result of our investigations, we understand that in the Waste & Recycling service, the Council operates a practice of task and finish and has made bonus payments.
We are now satisfied that there is evidence that is likely to give rise to equal pay claims against LBB with reasonable prospects of success. This is of course dependent on your individual circumstances, and we will require members to complete case forms so that we can confirm whether your individual circumstances are captured within the potential claims we’ve identified. You must provide details of your job role, grade and dates of your employment.
If you have multiple job roles, we need this information for all of them. In order to pursue a claim, you can download an equal pay case form along with guidance on how to complete it.
Please return your completed case form to contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
at your earliest convenience.
In tandem with the legal process, we must also exhaust internal procedures by lodging collective grievance. Once we have received your case form, we will add your name to the collective grievance that we will send to the Council. In addition, we will shortly arrange to start early conciliation on your behalf. This is the pre-requisite to starting a Tribunal claim.
Please be aware of time limits. To pursue a claim for equal pay, the claim must be lodged in the Tribunal within 6 months less one day of the end of your employment or a change in your employment. If you have left the Council in the past 6 months, or if you have changed your role in the last 6 months, please make this clear on the case form.
Please be assured that we will continue to maintain a constructive dialogue with your employer and seek to resolve matters industrially, wherever possible.
We will also keep you updated as to the progress of any negotiations/claims whenever there are any significant developments.
End.
Message of solidarity to Tower Hamlets strikers on St Lukes school picket line
On behalf of our branch Barnet UNISON sends our unwavering solidarity and support to you and your NEU colleagues as you take strike action on the 1st and 3rd of April.
We stand with you in your fight against the proposed cuts to Teaching Assistant roles, a move that will undoubtedly have a devastating impact on the quality of education and the workload of all staff.
Your determination to defend education and demand reasonable workloads is an inspiration to us all. We recognise the vital role Teaching Assistants play in supporting students and teachers, and we condemn any attempt to diminish their contribution.
We understand the pressures you face and commend your courage in taking this stand. We will be sharing your message of resistance throughout our branch and encouraging our members to send messages of support.
We wish you a strong and successful strike. We are with you in this fight for fair working conditions and the future of education.
End.
“No stone left unturned” What is The Barnet Group (TBG)? Number 7: Part Three
Ever since we published our article called Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, we have been inundated with questions about The Barnet Group (TBG).
Barnet UNISON published three animations which were put together with the help of our Barnet UNISON reps in TBG
Here is Animation Number Three which we noticed someone was watching it on a bus.
After watching this animation we strongly recommend you reading our article Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, here https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2024/10/18/barnet-council-the-tale-of-three-chief-executives-and-one-plumber/
End.