Healthcare assistants strike win

Steve Score, Leicester Socialist Party

Healthcare assistants in Northamptonshire and Leicester hospitals have suspended their strike action to vote on a new offer from management of the two hospital trusts.

The offer is a big step forward from where they started and is a significant change from a management who were previously claiming that they did not have the money to meet the demands of Unison members.

It is a testament to the determination of union members in both areas. In the Leicester hospitals, they have taken 32 days of strike action so far and had been in the middle of a planned month-long strike.

First, they won a regrading to take into account the extra clinical duties they had carried out for years. Then they took strike action to demand six years’ worth of back pay.

The offer, described by Unison as “not perfect” because it doesn’t at this stage include back pay for ‘bank staff’, is nevertheless a substantial improvement. HCAs on Band 3 will automatically get three years’ back pay and can get up to six years if they can show they were doing those duties.

It will be a significant achievement by these low-paid workers, but the struggle to achieve justice for the bank staff should continue.