300 low-paid Nottinghamshire hospital workers have been on strike for the third time, demanding pay justice and decent treatment by their employer, Medirest. This profit-seeking company has the contract for cleaning, portering, security, catering and other services at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust. It’s a subsidiary of multinational Compass, which made over £2 billion profit last year, but refuses to pay the Covid bonus that was paid to NHS staff.
The latest strike of GMB members lasted four days, with huge picket lines outside King’s Mill Hospital. Lesleigh and Marzena (housekeepers) and Martin and David (porters) described the background to Jon Dale from Mansfield Socialist Party:
“Everything Medirest does is to save it money, not for patients. Porters are told we should be doing 19 jobs a day. If a patient isn’t quite ready for us to take them to X-ray, we’re meant to leave them for the next job, not wait and talk to them for a few minutes.
“In A&E, a doctor might tell us a patient is ready to go for a scan, but Medirest tells us not to move them until the job is logged in, as the company gets paid each time. A patient could wait an hour, just so Medirest gets paid.
“I have been moving big waste bins and been told to immediately move a sedated child in bed, with no time to wash and change into clean overalls.
“There should be twice as many porters employed. New porters get sent straight out without training. That’s dangerous – patients could fall off a trolley or out of bed.”
“I started as a housekeeper nine weeks ago, after the first strike,” said Lesleigh. “The unpaid Covid bonus doesn’t affect me. But I’m here to support my colleagues and make sure they get what they deserve.
“If one of us is sick, we should be paid sick pay instead of being forced to come into work and maybe pass infections to patients or other staff.”
Medirest workers at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, are now striking on the same issues. If Medirest doesn’t back down, coordinating the two strikes will build the pressure.
NHS Trusts should immediately end these contracts and bring all workers back in-house on NHS pay, terms and conditions.
Stop NHS privatisation
The GMB should demand the new government kicks out all private profit-seekers from the NHS. But it’s clear the government is travelling in the opposite direction, with more NHS work to be handed to the private sector. GMB members will be looking for political representatives to fight for them.
As a porter on a zero-hour contract, Mike, said: “Starmer says he wants to sort out the NHS. He can start right here. If he doesn’t, we’ll march on 10 Downing Street.”
