Steve Bell, Unison Health Service Group Executive, personal capacity
With the junior doctors balloting on an approximate 22% pay rise over two years, public sector union Unison’s Health Service Group Executive (SGE) met to discuss its response to the pay offer to other NHS workers. The new Labour government is implementing the pay review body (PRB) award of 5.5%.
Unison campaigned this year on gaining a significant pay rise. While 5.5% is one of the largest awards recommended by the PRB, it goes nowhere to restoring the pay lost during the Tory austerity years, with our lowest-paid workers currently getting only one pence above minimum wage! This pay rise does take it to nearer the ‘real living wage’, but is nowhere near Unison’s policy position of £15 an hour. With shop workers and others in the care sector now earning more than NHS staff, it will do little to improve staff shortages.
It also remains unclear as to how it’s going to be funded. At the SGE we were provided with a paper that said one third had to be found through ‘efficiency savings’. We were told that the ICBs (Integrated Care Boards) were getting full funding, but most ICBs in England are already in huge debt and demanding savings, with job freezes widespread.
So it appears that the workforce will be paying for part of this increase, either through working harder or by seeing terms and conditions slashed. The award also did not mention the shorter working week or any of the other demands that Unison had raised.
Many staff will welcome the 5.5% rise that they are likely to see in their pay packet in October, as they have been waiting six months already. But we should be demanding more.
The left members on the SGE, including Socialist Party members, argued that we should demand more and go for negotiations with the new government, as we will get the 5.5% anyway. If we wait until next year, based on what Labour is saying about spending plans, we will not see a rise to recuperate what we have lost. Our union does not support pay being decided by a so-called independent review body – we want direct discussion with the government.
In the SGE discussions, the right-wing majority hid behind the Tory anti-trade union laws, saying we couldn’t get the 50% threshold last time, so why would we get it this time. It was pointed out that the Labour Party said it would repeal the 2016 anti-trade union act. But it appears that even Starmer-supporting Labour Party members on the SGE don’t believe this will happen – and aren’t prepared to challenge it!
One would have thought that with the increasing number of strikes Unison is organising over support workers’ pay, that there might be some recognition that low-paid workers are prepared to struggle and fight to improve pay, terms and conditions.
Unfortunately the left lost the vote two-to-one on the executive, so in Unison’s consultation it will be asking members to accept the award. The leadership will be giving an uninspiring message – despite their own admission that the union has lost members in Wales and elsewhere, including to other unions.
The left will continue to fight for better pay, terms and conditions, but it’s also clear that the union leadership tied to Labour needs to be fought as well. They are holding back the aspirations of many workers in the health service.
