Museum workers to strike over pay

Version 0 of 1.

More than 200 specialist staff at four national museums have voted to take strike action in a row over pay.

Members of the Prospect union at the four sites of the National Museum of Science and Industry voted for a series of one-day walkouts.

The Science Museum in London, National Railway Museum in York, National Media Museum in Bradford and the Science Museum in Swindon are affected.

Prospect said its members had not received a pay offer due last April.

The staff, including museum curators, conservators and managers, voted for the walkouts by a majority of nine to one.

Dates for the strike action have not yet been set, because the union is holding a final negotiating meeting with museum management next Tuesday.

Emily Boase, Prospect's negotiations officer, said: "Members have had to endure an effective pay freeze for 10 months.

"The failure to even make an offer for 2007 pay is incompetence of the highest order.

"We are giving the museum a last chance to save the public from a totally unnecessary dispute."