For a minimum wage of £8 per hour and a
35-hour week for all health service workers
DIRECTORS OF the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, some
already on as much as £140,000, have been awarded an 8% pay rise! This
compares with 3% for workers on the ‘front line’.
A Leicester health worker
The huge pay rise for the directors has caused anger amongst all NHS
workers – but it is especially hard to stomach for those who are only on
between £9,000 and £13,000. The starting wage for a nurse is also too
low – only around £19,000.
Maintenance workers, clerical workers, caterers, cleaners, security
guards, nurses and all the other low-paid workers in the NHS perform a
valuable service – without them the hospitals would not function. In
return they should be paid a decent living wage.
Some of these workers have even been downgraded recently. This is
because of the national regrading scheme, Agenda for Change, which
Socialist Party members in the health trade unions argued against,
precisely for this reason. There are more than 300 low-paid NHS workers
in medical records and maintenance across the three major Leicester
hospitals who have had their pay frozen because of Agenda for Change.
Whilst it’s true that some sections of workers have been upgraded and
this is to be welcomed, UNISON and the other health unions should not
accept the downgrading of workers whose pay is already very low. This
downgrading must be challenged and defeated – using strike action if
necessary.
Even those workers who have not been downgraded are scathing of the
‘Agenda for Change’ review process that makes them justify their job to
a review panel.
New Labour have increased fat cat pay at the top of the NHS, and
maintained low pay at the bottom. They have also started to hand whole
sections of the NHS over to private companies. Cleaners, caterers,
maintenance, and soon the buildings themselves, will all be in private
hands! They are also promoting the development of a stronger private
health sector which is undermining the NHS.
To stop the break-up of the health service, the trade unions much act
decisively, not only on the industrial field, but also in the political
arena. We need to build a new workers’ party, a party that defends
public services and fights against low pay. This is the only way that a
serious challenge to New Labour can be mounted!
Blunkett hits sick and disabled
NEW LABOUR’S work and pensions secretary, David Blunkett, has advised
hundreds of thousands of people on incapacity benefit to stop watching
daytime TV, get on their bikes and start looking for work.
Blunkett aims to cut the figure of 2.7 million people on Incapacity
Benefit. But a recent survey by the GMB union shows that "there is
a direct link between high employment rates and low benefit claimant
rates, and vice versa."
"Where there are jobs," they say, "there are low
claims rates. The task for the government in seeking to reduce the
number of claimants is to promote the creation of more jobs."
Blunkett talks of making people "see work as the best route out
of welfare" but, an advice centre worker in South Yorkshire told
the socialist, the government is doing no such thing. "They’re
attacking one of the most vulnerable groups in society. And Blunkett has
no idea of the reality in places like this.
"South Yorkshire used to be a thriving industrial area – with
high employment but also high pollution. These were dangerous jobs where
employers would often rather pay fines than make things safer and
healthier.
"Then when Thatcher destroyed jobs, you had many people who
suffered from diseases like emphysema, from injuries received at work
and also from conditions like depression. Many of them are now on
Incapacity Benefit.
"The redundancy money that many people got has now gone. It’s
soul-destroying. Blunkett’s plans would attack sick, disabled and
vulnerable people."
Disability groups and trade unions are worried at the effects of
Blunkett’s proposals, particularly if there is an economic downturn.
Market pressures ruining the NHS
THE HEALTH service’s ‘spending watchdog’, the Audit Commission says
that opening up the NHS to market pressures is destabilising hospitals
and putting emergency services at risk.
The Audit Commission says a new system of payment by results – where
NHS Trusts are rewarded directly for every job done – was so extreme
that whole hospital departments, particularly Accident and Emergency
departments, could be forced to close.
But every week there are new protests at policies that cause massive
debts and put market pressures and the chasing of profit before health
care. Andrew Walton reports from Leicestershire.
MELTON, RUTLAND and Harborough Trust is £6 million in the red – they
plan to turn patients away from their hospitals. Leicester Partnership
Trust is £4 million in the red. To meet the shortfall, hospital bosses
stopped hiring new staff and were going to close two units for mentally
ill patients, totalling 60 beds.
However, after patients, their families, staff and the UNISON union
protested management backed down – for now. After a public
"consultation exercise," decisions will be made about these
provisions, which care for vulnerable elderly and chronically mentally
ill people and employ 110 staff.
This is only a temporary victory and we need to prepare for another
battle to save the units. Unfortunately, Leicester’s track record of
‘consultation exercises’ isn’t good.
The local council are steam-rollering through cuts in special school
provision against the community’s wishes. They are introducing City
academies which will run in the interests of big business and not of
children’s education. We should not let local hospitals carry out the
same cuts and privatisation as Leicester’s schools.
Yet Labour claim to be spending more than ever on the health service.
Where is the money going? Into the pockets of private firms, who are
taking over much of the management of NHS Trusts. Their only interest is
in making profit, which will mean cuts to patient care.
The most vulnerable groups: the long-term ill, patients needing
regular appointments and low-paid hospital staff will take the brunt of
cutbacks to recoup budget deficits and meet government targets.
We need good quality, publicly funded healthcare for all. That’s why
we fight for a socialist society, run for the benefit of the majority
rather than a few wealthy individuals, that would deliver decent quality
public services.
Pay deal for privatised staff
ON 6 OCTOBER the Department of Health, trade unions, the National
Health Service (NHS) employers and NHS private contractors signed an
agreement over the pay and conditions of contracted-out workers in the
NHS.
Brian Loader, UNISON NHS logistics, personal capacity
We welcome the pay increases for many of these workers. The agreement
covers staff in cleaning, catering, portering, hotel services,
switchboard etc, who have had to manage on the minimum wage during
successive Tory and Labour governments.
These negotiations had stalled but have been driven forward by the
increasing organisation and industrial militancy of NHS trade unionists
across the country. Long battles by low-paid workers, like those at the
Whipps Cross hospital in east London and in Bolton, have won pay
increases for privatised staff.
But the agreement will not alleviate poverty pay and conditions in
the health service. Although it will close the gap between NHS staff and
contracted-out staff undertaking the same tasks.
The agreement still allows the contractors to phase in the additional
payments and holidays at their pace over the next five months and
privatised staff will not get access to the NHS pensions scheme.
Also, the agreement excludes staff employed by private contractors in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, staff employed by Independent
Treatment Centres and those involved in hard facilities management –
maintenance of land, buildings and equipment.
From 1 October 2006 the terms and conditions of contracted out staff
should be no less favourable than those applying to directly employed
NHS staff covered by Agenda For Change. This has to be agreed with the
trust and the trade unions. There is a dispute resolution procedure,
which could result in the trust terminating a contract with the
contractor.
The trade unions will have to be organised in every area to make sure
this agreement is implemented in full.
