PCS members at Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales (NMW) are escalating their 2-year dispute over removal of extra payments for weekend working with further action this week and all-out action from bank holiday Monday, as well as a strike rally.
 
The workers, including gallery assistants, are paid as little as £15,640 a year and work over 35 weekends a year.
 
They depend on the weekend working allowances to survive and are being threatened with dismissal if they do not accept the latest offer from management.
 
By contrast, a 3 year dispute in National Museums of Scotland over the withdrawal of weekend payments has come to an end after management made an improved compensation offer, which was overwhelmingly accepted by PCS members.
 
Our members are walking out for 2 days on Thursday and Friday ahead of weekend action which takes place on Saturday (30 Apr 2016) and Sunday (1 May 2016).
 
On Saturday all NMW sites will be affected by all-day action while on Sunday, the Big Pit National Coal Museum will be affected from 09:00 to 13:00 and all other sites, all day.
 
Continuous strike action at all sites starts from bank holiday Monday (2 May 2016).
 
PCS Wales Secretary, Shavanah Taj said, "This is a big step, which we've not taken lightly, but museum management have upped the ante by refusing even to talk about improving their compensation offer and by bullying staff into signing away their rights to weekend pay. We have been prepared to negotiate all along and that's still what we want. Since we made this decision, we've already had an offer from the museum to talk to them about reducing the number of weekends that their staff have to work. They've previously refused to discuss this, so this is already a step forward, in response to the pressure that we've applied. We now need to see some movement on financial compensation. This week, we are demonstrating how serious we are in our demands for a fair settlement, management need to show that they are equally serious about listening to their own staff."
 
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