Health round-up: The fight for NHS contracts is on

St Helier Hospital is part of the trust (Pic: Wikimedia commons)

Around 35 people attended a strike solidarity meeting for UVW union members at St Helier and Epsom hospitals, in south London, last week.

The UVW has made extraordinary progress at the Trust. Within a few months they recruited over 300 facilities workers, who in August voted overwhelmingly for action.

Since then, the union has been in talks with management, which have delivered very little.

The speakers at the meeting said they are likely to name strike days soon and encouraged others to visit the picket lines.

The dispute centres on their unequal contracts. Workers were brought back in house four years ago. But they still have substantially worse pay and conditions than other NHS colleagues.

The workers affected are almost entirely black or Asian or are migrants. The UVW alleges the unequal terms and conditions are evidence of bosses’ institutional racism.

The dispute has acquired extra significance in recent weeks as racists mounted dozens of union jack flags on lampposts directly outside St Helier hospital.

Ben Windsor

Lab workers clean up

Workers at a major biomedical firms with laboratories across Britain have won a significant victory.

Nearly 1,000 workers at HSL and Doctors’ Laboratory in the Unite union struck last month demanding better pay.

They will now get an average pay rise of 15.4 percent over two years. They also won a new banding system that guarantees pay progression in line with NHS Agenda for Change contracts.

In addition, bosses have been forced to improve workers’ sick pay and holidays—as well as making some concessions on pensions in the HSL firm.

But one rep warned that the union must ensure bosses stick to the new agreement.

They said that most workers are happy with the deal but are cautious about its implementation.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “Let this stand as a warning to any private sector NHS provider who thinks they can get away with short‑changing our members.”

Threats make bosses cave

Hundreds of healthcare assistants (HCAs) in Blackpool, Lancashire, have called off a planned strike after bosses caved in to their demands.

The Unison union members were due to walk out for three days on Monday.

The dispute centred on unpaid backpay owed to HCAs for years wrongly placed in band 2.

Workers had already struck for 48 hours in September and were ready to go again.

But bosses finally agreed to drop plans to withhold some of the money owed to workers. Unison says more than 700 HCAs will now share a massive £6 million in backpay. And HCAs have been regraded as band 3.

Unison regional organiser Sam Doherty, said, “This is an amazing victory,” adding that the campaign won’t end until we’ve ironed out the final details.”

• Ambulance workers in the east of England have defeated bosses’ plans for “team-based” working.

The 1,500 GMB union members at the East of England Ambulance Service Trust challenged the bosses, pointing out the changes would have a detrimental impact on both patients and staff.

After negotiations failed, the union threatened to strike. That was enough to rock newly appointed top boss Neill Moloney, who quickly scrapped the plans.