by Ian Pattison, Enfield and Lea Valley Socialist Party
Privatised NHS staff, working for ISS, are taking six days of strike action over two weeks.
The workers are striking over serious allegations — accusing managers of bullying, including racism, failing to properly pay bank holiday overtime, unmanageable workload, while grievances take months to be resolved. At Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, north London, 40 people were on the picket line — caterers, cleaners, security, etc — organised in GMB union.
Photo: London GMB
Management want a ‘flexible’ workforce, where workers do multiple jobs in the hospital. One moment you could be cleaning who knows what, the next moment you’re working in the kitchen. Patients and other staff will be worried to hear that.
When I lived in East London, it was a different hospital, different private company, different union — Unite. But the issues with privatisation were the same.
After years of private vultures, in 2022-23 those east London Barts NHS workers did something that should inspire the GMB members in Enfield. Their private employers were kicked out, and they won being directly employed by the NHS.
Labour MP Feryal Clark, and Ergin Erbil, who was kicked out as council leader when Labour lost in May, both spoke on the picket line. The Socialist Party and local trade union council spoke too.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government promised “the biggest ‘insourcing’ in a generation”. If so, why are these still-privatised workers forced to strike?
Enfield Council could use its powers to hold a local referendum on NHS services to oppose privatisation. The Greens now hold the balance of power between Tory and Labour on Enfield Council. What are they doing to back the strike?
Some strikers hoped that Andy Burnham would be an improvement on Keir Starmer. But they’re not waiting around.