Just three Labour MPs – at the time of going to pixel – have backed an Early Day Motion petition calling for higher pay for their staff. The move by Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Mary Kelly Foy and Grahame Morris comes amid continued lobbying by the Unite Union parliamentary branch, who this morning sent an unsolicited email to all parliamentary staffers – including those who aren’t members of the union – asking them to join the strike campaign about staffers’ pay. Ironically, the email encourages staff to join the union by contacting the union branch’s membership officer, who works for Labour MP Olivia Blake. Blake has not signed the EDM…

The communique, forwarded to Guido, reiterates the left-wing union’s demand for RPI +2%, amid real terms pay cuts and increased workloads.

The union is set to meet again on 17^th February when members will vote on a motion to ballot for industrial action.

MPs, they warn, will be the “focus of the ballot”, since they are the sole employer of the staff proposing strike action. Embarrassing given the membership of Unite Union’s parliamentary branch is almost entirely comprised of those working for left-wing MPs who’ve been supporting strike action in the wider public sector…

A letter sent by the union to IPSA’s chair Richard Lloyd says a motion was passed last Thursday without dissent, at one of the largest branch meetings ever held.

“This branch resolves to begin the process of balloting for strike action and reiterates our call for an RPI +2% pay rise.

Further we call on IPSA to do the following;
• Conduct another independent review into comparable positions and wages
• Review workloads and staff turnover
• Publish the data and the report
• Commit to increase staff wages via automatic uplift, by the amount recommend by the review

Although strike action will need to take place against individual MPs they are not the target of our campaign, they do not set the automatic uplift.”

It’s a shame so few Labour MPs are willing to sign the EDM on behalf of their strike-loving staff…