Betrayed NHS staff take action

Unite joined six other unions in strike action today (October 13) in a historic four-hour work stoppage over NHS pay. Picket lines dotted hospitals and clinics throughout the country, as health service workers came out to demand the one per cent pay rise they were promised when the NHS independent pay review board made its recommendation to the department of health.
This is the first NHS strike action over pay in more than 30 years.
“We’ve been lied to”
UNITElive came out to the picket line by St. Thomas’ Hospital, a stone’s throw away from Westminster, where MPs lathered themselves with an 11 per cent pay rise earlier this year, all the while claiming a paltry one per cent rise for NHS workers was unaffordable.
Unite member Bob Davis, an electrician for the health service out on strike today, said he felt betrayed.
“We were made to believe we’d get a one percent pay rise, and it didn’t happen,” he said. “We’ve been lied to.”
Lynn Hubbard, a Unite member and NHS dietician, was also angered by the disingenuousness with which the government has come up with health workers’ pay award.
“It’s really shocking that our Pay Review Body has rewarded us a one percent rise, and even that’s not been honoured,” she said. “For so many of our members, the pay we get, you simply can’t live on it. The small one per cent rise we’re asking for is not even adequate anyway, after having a pay freeze for the past three years.”
Cost-of-living rising
Many members out on the picket line voiced similar concerns about cost of living increases, which have far outstripped the meagre wages they earn.
Unite member Kim Lewis, a speech therapist, explained how difficult it is to keep up, especially in London.
“I know a lot of people who’ve just qualified, and they’re having to live far outside London and then travel to the centre of the city,” she said. “They’re living in worse accommodation than when they were students. Our wages just aren’t enough to cover the most basic expenses.”
Unite rep Vanessa Williams-Herrington, who works in hotel services for the NHS, highlights how low pay forces health workers to work ever harder and longer hours.
“What’s happening is, especially nurses, they’re working extra hours just to make ends meet. They’ll finish a 12-hour shift, and they’ll get off and do another six hour shift,” she said. “That’s not safe, not for anyone. If this government is really interested in putting patients first, they need to start staffing properly and paying properly.”
Unite regional secretary Peter Kavanagh contested the argument put forward by health secretary Jeremy Hunt that those on incremental pay increases don’t need the one per cent pay rise.
“Incremental pay is part of long-standing agreements within the health service, and indeed throughout much of the public sector, which reflects increasing levels of skill,” Kavanagh said. “Incremental pay is an expectation once you begin the job. But a proper negotiated pay rise is an additional reasonable expectation to combat inflation, which has far outstripped wages in both the private and public sectors.”
Groundswell of public support
Although Unite’s health workers expressed anger at the government for denying them the pay rise it promised, the most palpable emotion of the day was joyful solidarity.
A Unite-commissioned survey found that beyond unions joining together to fight for an NHS pay rise, the wider public overwhelmingly supported strike action as well. A full 61 per cent of those surveyed believed the strike was justified, with only a fourth of respondents saying it wasn’t.
Strikers at the picket line were not surprised by the results.
“Everyone knows NHS workers, and everyone knows with the cost of living, it’s getting harder and harder to live,” Bob Davis said. “We’re all in this together. The public, all of us, value the NHS.”
“The public realise that they need an NHS that works, because at some point, every one of us will use the service,” Lynn Hubbard added. “The public realise we’re not greedy. We’re not asking for the earth; we just want to be able to live.”
Kavanagh said that the survey was proof against government and media claims that the strike action was disapproved of by the wider public.
“The media and the government always attack strikers, no matter what sector they’re in,” he said. “They’ll play the emotive card, you know, ‘How dare they go on strike.’ But this survey proves the public understands that these workers are going out on strike with great reluctance. They don’t want to be standing out here in the rain, they want to be on the wards, in the clinics looking after people. But this all just shows how desperate the situation has become and the public realises it.”
Beyond pay
While NHS workers on strike today were concerned about their own livelihoods, more than anything, they were concerned about the future of a health service in which patient lives are at risk because of politicians’ neglect.
Unite rep Mark Boothroyd, a staff nurse at St. Thomas’ hospital, explained what it’s like on the frontline as Tories progressively seek to privatise the NHS.
“If the NHS continues being privatised, even if we win decent pay, it’s going to be a worse service for everyone,” he said. “Services are going to be rationed and patients are not going to get good care.
“Even now, there’s huge pressure on beds and we’re running on over one hundred per cent capacity. We discharge patients in the morning and we get more in the early afternoon. There’s no rest. It’s very heavy work.”
Steven Hack, a community speech and language therapist, agrees, arguing that it is privatisation that’s draining away funds from the NHS.
“They bailed out the banks and recapitalised them with billions of pounds,” he said. “They can and should do the same for the NHS. If they stop private companies from taking over the NHS, they’ll save billions. Privatisation just wastes money.”
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, addressing the St. Thomas’ hospital picket line this morning, made clear the enormity of what was at stake.
“It is an outrage that every politician says they are so proud of our NHS, while they sell it off right before our very eyes,” he said. “Seventy per cent of NHS services that have been tendered so far gone into private hands. We need to make sure to continue this fight to save our NHS.”
Stay tuned on UNITElive for the latest developments on the NHS pay strike.