Workers at NHS trusts across the south west of England protested last week against plans to impose regional pay.
A “cartel” of bosses at 21 NHS trusts have formed a consortium to impose regional pay. They each donated £10,000 of trust funds towards funding the cartel’s aims.
Workers in Devon, Somerset, Exeter, Bath, Bristol, Weston Supermare and Cornwall held lobbies and protests at trust board meetings.
An angry meeting of over 100 midwives took place at Southmead Hospital, part of North Bristol Trust. This follows hundreds of health workers attending joint union meetings early last month.
The pay cartel aims to drive down pay, increase working hours, slash sick pay, unsocial hours pay and holiday entitlement, and introduce performance related pay. And it’s being forged as a model for what the Tories want to do across the whole of the public sector.
Union activists have been postering notice boards and and ward meetings are being organised. Activists are pushing to turn talk of industrial action into reality and for a region-wide demonstration
There was a sense of solidarity and hope
Unions should be spreading the action
