by Len Hockey, Branch secretary, Unite Barts health branch
My Unite the Union branch meeting considered the 5.5% pay award for NHS workers by the pay review body (PRB), and the decision was made, following a vote, to recommend rejection to our members in the coming consultation by the national union.
Unite has submitted a claim for a restorative pay increase, like the junior doctors. It calculated that in the last 14 years, NHS pay has risen 31.5% (median value) but that the RPI inflation increase for the same period is 72.8%!
Our meeting commended the 22% the junior doctors have been offered in response to their restorative claim for 35%, and which the BMA leaders are recommending in their current ballot. That has been achieved through action.
Our members thought all healthcare staff should be treated equally, avoiding any division in our collective strength. We should all get the same as the junior doctors! It was noted that the increase of 5.5% was higher than current inflation by 2.2%. But inflation rose to over 11% previously, and those prices never came down!
This award no way reflects the scale of the crisis and the urgent response required to the dire situation our service is suffering. Millions are awaiting treatment. There is a recruitment and retention crisis that’s seeing the loss of valuable experience, as workers leave the service, face burn out and struggle to pay bills.
Our meeting expressed further concern that the award was to be partly funded, possibly by as much as a third, out of trust budgets. This can only lead to potential further downward pressure on both staff and quality of service.
Unite’s Health National Industrial Sector Committee (NISC) will be organising a consultation of members from 6 August to 16 September, but disappointingly it has adopted a neutral position on the award and will not be recommending rejection.
The new Labour government, in making the award, said it wants to avoid more strikes. That reflects the collective power as workers that we have, exemplified in the junior doctors’ offer.
Saving our NHS means massive, urgent investment and that starts with wages to attract workers. The money is there. We are the sixth richest country on the planet.
Coordinated national strike action by NHS workers and their unions can win more money from the newly elected Labour government, who are scandalously wedded to the previous Tory government’s spending plans.