National Blood Service - some updates and resources

The UNISON health SGE meeting yesterday - of which I will shortly post up a full report - heard a brief report from Bill Campbell about the current situation in the National Blood Service.

Bill reported that the unions in the NBS (UNISON and both sections of UNITE - TGWU and Amicus - have members in the NBS) were moving towards balloting their members for strike action against the proposed cuts and restructuring.

The NBS Board meets today, and union representatives are lobbying the board to protest against the cuts. Unless there's a positive reaction at the board meeting, Bill said, they would then be meeting UNISON's Industrial Action Committee to establish a timetable for a strike ballot.

Looking for more information on the dispute today, I've come across a couple of websites of interest: a blog run by the TGWU branch covering NBS staff, and a blog run by "Save our blood service".

There is also a petition on the 10 Downing Street website, which all trade unionists should sign up to.

The NBS is an essential public service, and all of us should be organising solidarity with the staff there who are doing their level best to defend the service from the Government's agenda of cuts, privatisation and marketisation.