Striking Ealing Traffic Wardens to Picket Councillors' Surgeries
Union promises intensification of action if dispute isn't resolved
An earlier protest by Unite members outside council offices
April 3, 2025
Traffic wardens striking in borough of Ealing are stepping up their efforts to put pressure on the council by targeting surgeries being held by local councillors.
Unite the Union has announced that it is to hold two protests at the time that ward representatives are scheduled to meet with their constituents.
On Friday (4 April) a protest will be held outside of Ealing councillors Amarjit Jammu, Shital Manro and Muhammed Iqbal’s joint surgery from 6pm to 7pm. The following day (Saturday, 5 April) there will be another demonstration outside the surgery being held by the head of parking services, Cllr Paul Driscoll, at Northfields Community Library from 10am to 12:30pm.
The staff, who are employed through the council’s wholly owned subsidiary Greener Ealing Ltd (GEL), have been taking strike action since 12 March and this is scheduled to continue until 12 April. The dispute began back in August 2024 over the refusal to recognise Unite the Union which the employees had belonged to when the parking enforcement contract was held by Serco. GEL previously handled waste management in the borough and those transferred over did not want to switch to the GMB which is the only union with which GEL wishes to deal. The traffic wardens have been represented by Unite for over a decade and want to be treated as a distinct workforce within the company.
Unite says that since its members started taking industrial action, four have been sacked on ‘trumped up charges’ and it is demanding these individuals be reinstated. GEL denies that anyone has been sacked without due cause.
Unite has raised the issue of its members being forced to meet daily targets for the issuance of tickets. It claims that pressure to hand out ‘rip off’ fines, which are increasing from £130 to £160 this Monday (7 April), is illegal and putting traffic wardens at risk from motorists unhappy at receiving a PCN. A recording leaked to the Evening Standard showed that managers were telling staff the number of tickets they should be issuing each shift, but the council says this is just one of many metrics by which employees are judged. Setting parking ticket or parking fine revenue targets is prohibited under The Traffic Management Act. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of parking tickets issued in Ealing doubled. Revenue from parking fines increased by £2.6 million over the same period – a rise of 149 per cent.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, "Greener Ealing and Ealing Council aren’t just union-busting — they’re putting workers in danger while ripping off residents. Forcing staff to hit unlawful ticket quotas fuels abuse and assaults, with rising ticket prices just making things worse. The council must reinstate the unfairly dismissed workers and recognise their union to guarantee proper protection and we call on councillors to take action to ensure this happens.”
The union says that if no resolution can be found, the strikes will be intensified.
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