Editorial of the Socialist issue 1223
The strike wave for a real pay rise is well and truly still on! And so is the fight to save the NHS and all our public services.
The news that Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members have rejected the latest Tory pay offer, despite the leadership’s strong recommendation to accept, is an incredible result.
The leadership of what was, throughout most of its 100-year history, a non-strike professional body, has been defied by its members and has now been forced to call more strike action.
This result follows the fantastic four-day strike by junior doctors in the BMA and HCSA – who have now taken seven days of action so far this spring. In these pages, nurses and junior doctors say what they think.
Now the May Day weekend has become another ‘mega-strike’: as the RCN strikes coincide with more national strike action by teachers in England in the National Education Union (NEU – see strike guidance and civil servants in the PCS. Everywhere, nurses and doctors are already demanding that their strikes coordinate in future.
The Unison consultation finished on the same day, with members accepting the pay offer, following a massive propaganda campaign by the right-wing leadership in health. Most Unison members have not been part of the strike action so far, as Unison only managed to get over the Tory anti-democratic turnout thresholds in ambulances and a small number of hospital trusts. Nonetheless, 40,000 members voted to reject – a huge number (see report from Unison’s health conference below).
Consultations continue till 28 April in Unite and the GMB, with Unite calling strikes in the Yorkshire Ambulance Trust, and at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Trust in London, on 1 May, with potentially others to follow.
Confidence
The fight of the nurses and doctors will give confidence to thousands of other workers. Even where a pay deal is accepted, it should not mean those workers are off the battlefield. There is a lot to do to build solidarity with the strikes, to give every assistance to the big numbers of health workers still striking over pay. But there is also a huge fight to continue to wage to save our NHS and public services from the cutters and privateers.
And there are still new layers potentially entering the struggle. That includes previously unorganised workers: Amazon workers in Coventry are striking again and GMB is balloting at other warehouses.
Importantly, in May, Unison begins a strike ballot of hundreds of thousands of members in local government and schools.
It is essential to strive for maximum unity across trade unions – with coordinated action and with national demonstrations.
Different disputes – in the NHS, schools, universities, postal service and railways – are at different stages. But it is clear, as it has been all through the strike wave, that it is the members that have pushed their leaders to fight and to keep doing so. With a bold leadership, more can be won.
The votes in the RCN and Unison both clearly raise the need for a fighting leadership. It underlines the importance of voting for Socialist Party members and other genuine fighters in the union national executive elections currently taking place in Unison, Unite, the NEU and PCS.
Even the most conservative leaders can be forced to go further than they want to. But in these struggles, a new generation of union activists is cutting its teeth and developing as the fighting leadership needed in the future.
The next ‘mega-strike’:
- Thursday 27 April: NEU in England
- Friday 28 April: PCS
- 8pm Sunday 30 April – 8pm Tuesday 2 May: RCN in England
- Tuesday 2 May: NEU in England
Unison health conference – Steely determination to continue to battle
Adrian O’Malley, Unison Health Service group executive, personal capacity; standing for NEC national health service general seat, in the Unison elections
Unison health conference took place in Bournemouth from 17 April. The background to the conference was the announcement of a three-to-one vote by NHS members to accept a pay deal covering years 2022-23 and 2023-24.
The deal would close down the 2022-23 dispute, with an unconsolidated lump sum starting at £1,665 and a below-inflation pay rise of 5% for 2023-24.
The deal was recommended by the leaders of all the NHS unions except for Unite. However, Socialist Party members on the Health Service Group Executive had argued to reject, and the vote to recommend acceptance was carried by a close vote, 20-15.
On the same day as Unison accepted the deal, the RCN announced that its members had rejected the deal, and reinstated its strike action over the May Day bank holiday.
An emergency motion accepting the deal and planning for the 2024-25 pay year was carried at conference. A critical motion was ruled out, but the debate did reflect members’ anger and frustration. The deal was criticised in contributions from delegates during the conference.
Unison General Secretary Christina McAnea responded in her address to conference by saying: “To those who never have anything good to say, stop talking down our union!”
Even delegates who supported the deal found it hard to celebrate. “A great offer? No! What we wanted? No!” said one delegate, who then went on to say we won’t get any more from a Tory government. On the contrary, Socialist Party members and many others had campaigned for reject, because with a determined lead, more could be won from this broken government.
Delegates spoke on the need to support the RCN and BMA in their strikes, and give supportive advice to Unison members who refuse to cross their picket lines.
The 5% rise for 2023-24 was condemned for doing nothing to address low pay and the shortage of staff, in particular nurses.
The main message of conference was to keep up the fight and prepare for future battles on pay.
Conference unanimously agreed to withdraw Unison from the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB – an unelected body of handpicked supposed ‘experts’) as soon as possible and to negotiate directly with the government on pay. This in itself is a reflection of the pressure from members on the leadership, which has gone along with the PRB for years previously.
Local disputes over the banding of health care assistants and others are spreading across the country.
The right-wing leadership of Unison health is deluded if it thinks a Labour government will come to its aid and deliver decent pay rises for NHS workers. Even in the last couple of days, Starmerite Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has refused to back the RCN strikes.
There is a steely determination among Unison health activists to continue to battle on pay and ensure future ballots are successful. On the SGE, we will be holding the right-wing majority to account. The countdown begins now to next year’s pay claim and beyond.
The message of conference is change will have to come from below. The forthcoming NEC elections give members a chance to elect a leadership that is prepared to fight with them.
Socialist Party candidates for Unison’s NEC:
Hugo Pierre, national black members’ male seat
April Ashley, national black members’ female seat
Adrian O’Malley, national health service general seat
Paul Couchman, national local government male seat
David Maples, national disabled members’ general seat
Jim McFarlane, Scotland male seat
Mary McCusker, Scotland female seat
Naomi Byron, Greater London reserved seat
Tom Hunt, East Midlands region male seat
RCN members respond to ballot result
We’ve been given no choice
Michelle Jarrett-Ruecroft, Nurse practitioner and RCN member
RCN members have once again voiced their anger at the government’s below-inflation pay offer by voting to reject the deal. 54% voted against the derisory offer of a one-off two-part non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and 5% for 2023-24.
Further strike action was immediately announced by the RCN leadership, who advised acceptance of the deal, but have now been pushed by the strength of feeling from the members.
The strike action will run from 8pm on 30 April to 8pm on 2 May, without derogations (agreements with managers to provide cover). This takes the RCN to the end of our lawful strike mandate period, so members are being balloted again so that further action can take place if necessary throughout the spring and summer.
We must put pressure on the government to get back round the table and improve the insulting offer. No healthcare professional wants to strike or put patients at risk, but RCN members feel they have been given no choice and are fighting for the future of the NHS itself.
Nurses need a fighting leadership
Helen Perriam, Mental health nurse and RCN member
The announcement that nurses in England rejected the current pay offer from the Tory government led to celebrations by many. The offer falls well short of a pay rise. It doesn’t even bring pay in line with that of 2008, taking into consideration the increase in the cost of living.
Nurses are struggling to get by on the current wage – especially if you are a single-parent family, if you drive as part of a community job, or have no non-sociable hours payments. This insulting pay offer does nothing to retain already burnt-out staff, or recruit new nurses to the profession. Even without the level of responsibility, stress, understaffing, and physical and emotional toll nursing takes, everyone should be afforded a dignified wage.
This result shows there is real appetite to fight. We now need the RCN leadership to get a backbone and lead it.
This result should give confidence to nurses that we can win, even when the leadership puts obstacles in our way. We need a leadership with the humanity and determination the nursing workforce has shown. I would urge the leadership to join up with other trade union leaders whose members are also engaged in a struggle.
Striking junior doctors speak out
‘We’re not backing down’
Tom Sharp, Picket line supervisor at St James’s hospital, Leeds, and on the BMA junior doctors committee (personal capacity)
I remember, in 2010, being a wide-eyed, impressionable 16-year-old, attending a medical school open day. We were told that as doctors we shouldn’t expect to be rich, but that we could expect to be comfortable.
I don’t come from a wealthy background. Honestly, comfortable sounded all right to me. So I worked hard. As well as a part-time job at a pizza shop, I picked up a voluntary role in my local hospital.
I studied hard. I went through years of study, clinical placements and exams, accumulating tens of thousands of pounds of debt, to come out the other side as a junior doctor. I’d finally made it – I would finally be “comfortable”.
Well, here’s the punchline – I’m anything but comfortable. In fact, I’m deeply uncomfortable.
I’m uncomfortable with the fact that I worked so hard to secure a position in a healthcare system that abuses me and my colleagues every single day, that takes us for granted, and which is led by a government that simply couldn’t care less.
I’m uncomfortable with the fact that the value of my pay has decreased every year since I became a doctor, that – like everyone – I’m struggling to meet the cost of living.
I’m uncomfortable working in a healthcare system that’s haemorrhaging hard-working doctors, who are either heading off to countries that will pay them properly, or else leaving the profession altogether.
I’m uncomfortable with the fact that this is all happening in an NHS that’s already bursting at the seams, and where up to 500 patients are needlessly dying every single week.
So far, we haven’t even managed to get the government around the negotiating table, but the strikes and demos should send a clear message to our prime minister and health secretary – we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not backing down.
‘Work together to protect what we have’
Aicha, Trainee psychiatrist, Chesterfield
Junior doctors’ need to strike goes beyond wanting full pay restoration. On the mental health front line, we are thinly spread to meet unprecedented demands that require a sensitive and in-tune workforce to provide the proper care required. Care that uplifts not only the patient but their loved ones, who often come with stress after waiting so long for help.
As doctors and allied healthcare staff, we are facing endemic burn-out and fatigue, which require our own remedies and help beyond that of ‘resilience training’. On the backdrop of the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, junior doctors are starting to strain.
We are striking so that our working conditions can change, so that our needs are met, our work environment becomes more attractive to staff, and ultimately we safeguard our NHS, so that it remains open and accessible to all that require help. We are all patients and will all need help from time to time. We all need to work together to protect what we have.
“We sacrificed being away from our families, with no certainty of a career until at least 35, so that we could do the best job we can. No one signed up to watch patients decline, when you know things could be better.”
“BMA members can see firsthand what is being done to the NHS and we are fearful. This fight is about pay restoration, but it isn’t just about an individual’s pay. It’s shouting out that it’s a worthwhile profession and organisation. It’s the whole basis of the NHS and its funding. The NHS has been plundered for years by private companies, and governments of all colours have facilitated it. It’s reported that waiting lists are backing up due to strike action, but we see clinics and theatre lists cancelled weekly due to lack of staff or equipment.”
“I’ve never worked less than a 50-hour week in my career.”
“It would be great to be able to join pickets with the nurses.”
“I really love this job, I want to keep doing this job but I want to be valued for it!”
Thanks to Iain Dalton, Jon Dale, Denise Tooley-Okwonko, Sally Griffiths, Corinthia Ward and Nick Hart
Catherine Clarke, Southampton Socialist Party, reports from the picket line at Southampton General Hospital
Newly qualified doctors told us they start working at a pay grade of £14.09 an hour. One doctor came off a 12-hour shift and joined the picket line. He was responsible for five to six wards with 60 to 100 patients. Junior doctors are allowed two half-hour breaks, but rarely take them since their beepers constantly go off.
One doctor informed us that he graduated in a class of 40 medical students. He said that at least ten have moved to Australia, some are in Europe and Canada. Nearly half of his cohort are no longer working in the UK. He said that in Australia the wages are much better and the hours are shorter. Canada has just put out an advert offering four times the wage he is on, with accommodation included.
We talked about how unions must fight for coordinated strike action. We also talked about the preparation of a workers’ list of candidates for the general election: we need the Tories out, but Starmer’s Labour does not support the NHS strikes.
