Month: April 2018

Reject the NHS pay deal and push for strike action

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The ballot for the NHS pay deal opens on the 30th April. Unite Health Rep Mark Boothroyd (personal capacity) explains why this is a crucial opportunity for Unite members to reject the government’s offer and start a fight for the pay rise they need and deserve.

Health worker with clipboard

The pay deal is the outcome of negotiations between all 14 NHS unions and the government. The majority of the unions claim it is “the best that can be achieved without strike action” in the words of the negotiators. The GMB union disagrees and is recommending rejection. It is right to do so. UNITE members must reject the deal and push Unite and all other NHS unions to take industrial action if necessary to secure an above inflation pay rise. Remember the Government originally wanted to take one day’s holiday off NHS staff and the public outcry forced them to retreat. They can be beaten with a campaign. And we haven’t even started campaigning yet.

The proposed deal offers staff a total of 6.5% rise over three years: 3% in the first year, 1.7% in the second year and 1.67% in the third year. Those at the bottom of their band will get a larger raise as the bottom of pay bands are raised slightly, and band 1 will be abolished and the Living Wage brought in to the NHS.

This will be a boost for the lowest paid bands, but many of the workers who should benefit are in services that have been privatised, so will not benefit at all, as the pay rise as only applies to NHS contracted staff.

Inflation is predicted to be 6-8% over the next three years, so in reality the offer would mean a below inflation pay “rise” for most staff – a pay cut in real terms. It’s less than we deserve and less than we need to keep pace with the rising cost of living. It won’t stop the haemorrhaging of skilled staff from the overworked and unstaffed hospitals, and won’t attract more people to work in a service being dragged down by austerity and privatisation.

To accept this offer is to throw away a historic opportunity to challenge the government over their handling of the NHS. For once all the NHS unions are working together, negotiating together and there is a great opportunity for coordinated strike action against the government. If this is the best deal 14 unions could achieve just through negotiation, imagine how much more we could get with the threat of strike action by all the unions.

All unions are balloting on the offer at the same time, so its a great opportunity to coordinate campaigns with other union activists in your hospital or community services.

The government is in an extremely weak position, beset by scandal and failing brexit negotiations. If we apply pressure through the threat of strike action, we can force them to give us what we need: a large above inflation pay rise to address the 10-14% pay we have lost to inflation in the last decade.

If we accept this deal, we take the pressure off the government for another three years, and we lock ourselves into a below inflation pay rise, right before Brexit crashes the economy and sends living costs soaring.

Unite Health is recommending this deal to members. This is a mistake, and the decision was based on the belief that our members would not be willing to challenge the government over this miserable pay deal. We need to organise to prove them wrong, contact Unite Rank and File to help coordinate opposition to the pay offer, and organise to save the NHS from the rotten Tory government.

More links on the NHS pay offer:

Act now to avoid exclusion from Unite structures for three years

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Most of Unite’s structures run on a three-year cycle. Elections for workplace reps and branch officers should now be complete. But unless you act now you could be excluded from the rest of the union’s structures for the next three years.

No Entry sign on a door
Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown

Between 14 May and 1 June 2018 conferences will be taking place in every region to elect Regional Industrial Sector Committees (RISCs), Regional Equality Committees (REqCs), Area Activists Committees (AACs) and Regional Labour Party Liaison Committees (RLPLCs). This is a crucial step – these committees then elect people onto nearly all the other structures including National Industrial Sector Committees (NISCs), National Equality Committees (NEqCs), Regional Committees (RCs) and the National Labour Party Liaison Committee (NLPLC). They are also part of the route for election to industrial sector, policy and rules conferences, TUC conference and Labour Party conferences.

So if you don’t get on one of these committees (the RISC is particularly important for working members) you are likely to be excluded from most of Unite’s structures for three years, which can be a significant barrier to finding out what’s going on and having your say.

If you haven’t had an invitation to the conferences you are entitled to attend, you should urgently contact your Unite Regional Office. Note that to attend most of the conferences you must be an “accountable representative of workers” under Rule 6. If you want to stand for any of the committees, you should submit a nomination in advance from a branch of workplace – the relevant form should be provided with your invitation. If you don’t manage to do this, there’s still a significant chance you could stand for election at the conference itself, if (as is all too common) insufficient nominations have been received by the deadline.

It is important that you elect people who are actually going to turn up most of the time. The March 2018 Executive Council (EC) meeting clarified that the quorum for RISCs and AACs is 50% + 1 of those elected, so vacant seats don’t count against you as much as people elected who don’t show up. Vacancies can be filled during the three-year term but you often have to push for this. The EC also decided that if membership of a RISC or AAC should fall below five people, it will be linked with another Committee so that it can continue to function.

It’s normal for the relevant Committee to meet immediately after the Conference that elected it, and to elect its chair and delegates to other parts of the union structure.

More information about Unite Rules and a list of the Conferences and the Constitutional Timetable is available via the links.

 

Amendments for Unite Policy Conference

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Delegates at Unite Policy conference 2016

The preliminary agenda for Unite’s Policy Conference 2018 is out, listing all the motions submitted by branches and constitutional committees.

Each branch and committee now has the opportunity to submit one amendment to a motion. Your amendment has to be in by Friday 11 May 2018.

Amendments can’t change the overall thrust of a motion or be on an unrelated topic. They are useful to improve or correct problems in otherwise good motions, or to add points that may have been missed or which arose after the original motion was submitted.

The motion numbers may change in the final agenda, and many related motions and amendments are likely to be “composited” (merged) before they are debated.

The conference itself will take place 2-6 July in Brighton.