Mental health workers hold mass picket in Bristol

Mental health workers who work at Second Step are in dispute over pay and union recognition

Mental health workers held a mass picket in Bristol on Thursday as they kicked off seven days of strikes.

Around 80 Unison union members, who work across the south west of England, came together outside the Second Step bosses’ headquarters.

The Second Step charity imposed a 2.5 percent pay increase. But the strikers are demanding a rise of at least 5 percent and—they are also fighting for union recognition.

Steve is an organiser for the Bristol local government branch of Unison. He told Socialist Worker that the union members at Second Step had “been pushed into this action by a failure of management to properly engage with us, to negotiate”.

“We’ve got people who work here that are on food banks,” he said. “It is just not good enough.”

Steve said that a trade union recognition agreement had been tabled about two years ago by bosses. “It has been going backwards and forwards and it should have been signed all that time ago,” he explained.

“Unfortunately, the CEO and the senior leadership team are not engaging. In fact, they’re trying to, if anything, escalate.”

Workers are set to go out on strike again on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. But Steve added, “It is very likely we’re going to have to escalate and go all out. Nobody wants that, but they need to come back to the table.”

Second Step workers provide NHS and local authority services for people who experience mental distress.

Julia works in the community rehab service for Second Step in Bristol. She told Socialist Worker that people were being forced to leave because they can’t afford to live on the current wages.

She said, “I love my job. That is why I’m here. My team depends on funding. The quality of my work depends on how much I can live and do my job.

“It’s getting harder and harder to retain staff who do not rely on dual income homes. We’ve had so much turnover in our team.”

Julia added that management has been trying to undermine the strike.

Bosses are “now giving money to agency staff” who “charge like three times the amount of us”. “So they do have the money, actually. When they need it, they can fork it out,” she said.

Shannon stopped working for Second Step last September because of management’s failings. But she joined the picket line to show her support.

“I wasn’t able to feed myself and my daughter. I’m a single parent,” she said.

Dan, a recovery navigator for the community mental health team in Bath, had travelled up to join the mass picket. He slammed the charity’s hypocrisy, saying lower pay has “a massive, massive impact on people’s mental health”.

“Finances are one of the kind of main things that I see bringing so much stress for people,” he said.

He believed that this strike had wider implications for the charity sector. “I think we have a bit of a responsibility to be a model of good practice. One of the ways we’re doing that is through striking. It’s standing up for ourselves,” he said.

Trade unions in Bristol and across south west England should raise solidarity in their workplaces and join picket lines.