Rolling up the shirt sleeves

I haven't posted anything for a while, because of work pressures and just having far too much real world stuff to deal with, but the 4glengate.net blog will be back in action over the next few weeks (at least) because I'm going to be reporting regularly on the campaign in our UNISON branch to secure equal pay for our members working for private contractors within the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

The UHL, like all hospitals in the NHS, is required and expected by the Department of Health, to implement, in partnership with its contractors and the unions, the "National Framework Agreement" - which is designed to end the so-called two-tier workforce by bringing all contractor staff into line with Agenda for Change; not just their basic pay and job evaluation, but all terms and conditions as well. Currently it doesn't include pension provisions, the 'equality' of which is governed under different rules, and it doesn't apply to contractor staff working on "hard Facilities Management" (broadly, outside or mechanical work, commonly conducted by Estates Departments), but apart from those issues, the National Framework Agreement represents a major step forward in the NHS. Thanks to the agreement, increasing numbers of the poorest paid workers in the health service can now enjoy the same holiday entitlements, the same sick pay arrangements, the same night and weekend enhancements and the same job banding system as their colleagues working directly in the NHS. Getting contractors in to do the catering, cleaning and portering "on the cheap" will no longer be an option for NHS hospitals.

Except that the National Framework Agreement relies on local negotiations to implement it. At Leicester, although we have had the basic pay elements in place for a couple of years, there has never been agreement over the application of the terms and conditions elements. UNISON's position is that the National Framework Agreement says that all elements should have been in place by 1st October 2006, and so that is what we expect the UHL to deliver. The UHL position has always been that they could not afford to do that, and would only implement the terms and conditions improvements in 2008.

That row has rumbled on for four years, but things are now coming to a head.

UNISON has recently carried out consultative ballots in two of the three affected workforces, and received an overwhelming rejection of the UHL's supposedly final offer. Members working in Serco and Medirest have made clear to the union that they want to pursue the fight for the full implementation of the deal, including the back-dated elements of terms and conditions to October 2006, and they will not settle for anything less. Members working for ISS are being sent ballot papers in a similar exercise this week.

Leicestershire Health UNISON Branch met last week, and approved a 'strategy plan' aimed at securing the back-dated terms and conditions improvements, which included setting up an industrial action committee comprised of lay reps from each of the three groups of staff together with branch officers. The branch is writing to the regional secretary this week to request she authorise a formal industrial action ballot.

Yesterday, Tonia Williams, our excellent Regional Organiser, and myself, met with members from the ISS workforce at both the Glenfield and the Leicester General Hospital. Both meetings were very positive. The ISS workforce is definitely the one in which UNISON organisation has historically been weakest, but by the end of the meetings we had recruited three new UNISON members, and found four people to represent their colleagues on the Industrial Action Committee. For years we have sat in branch meetings worrying that the union was not very strong amongst ISS workers, despite the union being involved in negotiations on their behalf with both ISS managers and the UHL. The lesson of yesterday is clear - spending that time meeting directly with members and listening to them about an issue of direct relevance to them (their pay) is a much more productive use of time than arguing above their heads with the management.

So for the first time in over ten years as a UNISON representative, I'm now directly involved in the preparation stage of possible industrial action. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that even an avowed revolutionary can spend ten years as a UNISON activist and never even sniff a strike, or maybe I'm just not a very good agitator! I'd prefer to point out that the role of Marxists in the trade union movement is not to push workers into struggle, but to assist them when they have a struggle in front of them. Medirest, Serco and ISS workers clearly do now have a struggle in front of them, if they want to win the back-pay that they deserve, so it's time for a collective rolling-up of shirt sleeves Offers of help, solidarity messages, and enquiries about donations to our hardship fund greatly appreciated.