Strike Closes the David Bowie Centre and Young V&A on Friday and Saturday

If the David Bowie Centre was the plan this weekend, change it. V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum — the Bowie Centre sits inside the Storehouse, not the Museum — and Young V&A in Bethnal Green all close on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September because of industrial action. The V&A's own notice is unusually clear about the money: ticket holders will be contacted by email, and 'eligible refunds will be processed automatically within 14 days of receiving the cancellation email. There is no need to contact us to request a refund.'

V&A South Kensington stays open, though it carries the same notice and warns that some individual galleries may close. Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art runs there until 8 November at £28 on weekdays and £30 at weekends, so Cromwell Road remains a working day out.

This is a coordinated walkout by PCS and Prospect. PCS announced on 26 August that its members at the three sites would 'walk out on 4 and 5 September alongside sister union Prospect over management's failure to provide an acceptable pay offer or become a Real Living Wage accredited employer'. The ballots were emphatic: 95.39 per cent of PCS members backed strike action on an 87.04 per cent turnout, and in Prospect's whole-V&A ballot 83 per cent backed a strike on an 82 per cent turnout.

• A minimum 4% pay increase for staff earning above the Living Wage
• Time-and-a-half for bank holiday working
• London Living Wage accreditation within 12 months
• Improved food provision at the V&A East sites

Those are Prospect's four V&A-wide demands. One part of the dispute has already been settled, and it is worth recording because it was the part that made headlines. Prospect's general secretary Mike Clancy had said the new site 'is being delivered by workers who are denied adequate break time to use the toilet or have a drink of water'; the V&A responded that 'all our staff have access to water and toilet facilities and regular breaks while at work'. The Museums Association reported that on 7 August the V&A changed its policy and granted the breaks. What remains is pay.

A V&A spokesperson: the offer 'sees a 3.6 percent increase in the overall pay bill, an above-inflation pay award as a minimum, and 6.9 percent increase for our lowest-paid colleagues.'

The two closed days are not the whole of it. From 4 September, PCS members at every V&A site — South Kensington included — also begin action short of a strike, indefinitely: an overtime ban, work to rule and withdrawal of cooperation.

For the diary: V&A East Storehouse is on Parkes Street in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20 3AX, with the entrance inside the Here East building; admission is free and the David Bowie Centre is £5. Young V&A is on Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA, free, and its Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends show runs to 15 November. Both reopen after Saturday.