Health workers at Calderstones Hospital in Lancashire plan to strike from 6am to 9.30am on Thursday of next week.
They are fighting attacks on jobs, pay and local health services. The Unison union members voted by 99.4 percent to strike and backed action short of strike.
Unison assistant branch secretary Glen Harrison spoke to Socialist Worker in a personal capacity. He said, “The ballot was strong—and the mood is even stronger.
“We’ve raised our membership dramatically, because we’re the only union that’s balloting for action.”
Bosses are using the report into the Winterbourne View hospital abuse scandal to push through attacks. This recommended moving people with learning disabilities and autism into community care.
But the NHS crisis and the decimation of social care makes this impossible.
Bosses are redeploying band 3 nurses to band 2—up to a 20 percent pay cut for some workers.
Workers are concerned that this could be a way of softening up the service for future privatisation.
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