Nick Ailen at the front of the British Library picket line

BY REBECCA ROBINSON

STAFF have formed a picket line outside the British Library for two weeks of strike action over pay and conditions.

Union representatives said that people who worked for the institution in Euston Road were having to use food banks and struggling with bills after more than a decade of below-inflation pay rises.

Members of the PCS Union are leading the action which is running until Sunday. The library is still open but some reading rooms cannot be used. Individual cultural institutions have said the dispute is beyond their control and part of a wider public sector dispute.

Nick Ailen, the PCS branch chair at the library, said: “People have had enough of being worse off year after year. We’re not fairly paid for what we do and that’s ultimately at the hands of the government.”

He commutes into London for work and his train ticket has increased by 5.9 per cent, whereas his pay rise was only 3 per cent. “It’s really difficult for me to afford the increased price of my train ticket on top of the energy bills and council tax increases,” he said.

Jonathan McGrath, who has worked as a leading library assistant for a year and been a PCS member since October 2022, said: “We’ve got the tunes going and we’re getting a lot of support from people going past. It’s really good energy.”

He said he felt overlooked as part of the culture sector within the public sector, as the government and public tend to focus on other striking workers such as doctors and nurses.

He said: “Regardless of what job you do, you should be treated correctly.”

The strike action also relates to working conditions, pensions and redundancy deals. Mr McGrath said: “People often ask ‘if you don’t like it, why don’t you just leave?’ but that doesn’t change anything. “If you leave, the people who come after you are going to be stuck in the same situation. We need change for them.”

A spokesperson for the British Library said: “We respect the right of our staff to take industrial action. Although there has been some disruption to our services, we have been able to keep our public spaces and a number of our Reading Rooms open during this period.”

PCS members at the British Museum in Bloomsbury held a seven-day strike last week. In a winter – and now spring – of strike action over pay and conditions across several professions, junior doctors rallied in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday during 96 hours of industrial action.