By an NHS union rep
Around a million NHS workers in England are finding a nasty sting in the tail of their supposed “inflation-busting” pay deal.
They were told that they would get a 3% pay rise from April. But buried in the small print, or more accurately, hidden in the pay scale spreadsheets, was the fact that for anyone not at top of scale it was a meagre 1.5%, with the other 1.5% waiting to be paid until their incremental date. For some health workers that could be as much as 10 or 11 months away. Inflation is currently 2.4%, even on the government’s fake Consumer Price Index. The RPI (Retail Price Index), which was the index for many years, is currently 3.4%.
The RCN (Royal College of Nursing) has even been forced to apologise to its members for not telling them about the missing money and for blindly passing on misleading Department of Health (DoH) information to its members.
The other unions, with the exception of GMB, which opposed the deal, are still claiming that although they did not spell it out, the information could be found within their published spreadsheets.
The whole fiasco just serves to further demoralise health workers and reinforce moods of scepticism and pessimism about the union leaderships.
The whole pay negotiation followed the time-worn process perfected by the Unison leadership. The negotiations were conducted behind closed doors under the control of full-time officers, accompanied only by a few trusted lay members. These lay members were then isolated from rank and file views and pressure as it was agreed not to ‘issue a running commentary’ on the progress of negotiations for months on end. The Unison Health Service Group Executive were even told that they could not communicate details back to the branches and members who elected them!
Then, when the deal was finalised with the DoH, it was revealed for a ballot, with no opportunity to debate the details. It was take-it or leave-it. This approach bypassed the reps and branch secretaries who keep the union going day-to-day, month-to-month, and went out on ballot to the broad mass of members, together with some very positive spin and a recommendation to accept, in order to get the desired result. The same process was used to demobilise the pensions strikes of 2011-12, and before that to sell Agenda for Change in 2005-06. Each time it happens it strengthens the arguments of those in the workplaces who say “Why join, they don’t ask you anything anyway”, and it effectively disenfranchises hard-working reps and branch secretaries.
Unfortunately, for Unison, this is par for the course, but the RCN is not even a union. What was more interesting were the roles of the two medium-sized unions in the NHS, Unite and GMB.
Unite has on several occasions stood out against Unison-inspired deals in the NHS, including what was seen by many as a pensions sell-out in 2012. But this time the union fell in behind Unison/RCN and it is now reaping a storm of criticism from members in the Ambulance Service, who perhaps stand to lose the most from this deal because of proposed changes in their shift allowances.
AS for GMB, they stood out against the deal and have switched to a type of top-down militancy. They called a special NHS reps’ delegate conference where the deal was thoroughly explained and the decision to recommend rejection was made. Their web site contains a lot of factual and critical material.
This rejectionist stand is probably driven by a need to consolidate their small and scattered NHS membership before it dissipates altogether. Although they secured an 87% rejection, they have refused to publish the actual numbers – probably because it would show their total membership to be so small. However, the GMB stance has definitely won them members, in the Ambulance Service at least.
The lack of enthusiasm for the deal was shown in the other unions’ ballot turnouts – 30% for Unison, 27% for Unite, and a low of 18% for RCN. Even the small and cohesive Society of Radiographers could only manage 46%.
What are the lessons?
The unions – all the unions – need to return to the principles of lay-member democracy.
Lay member leadership. Activists must argue against bureaucratic rule in the unions where unelected full-time officers control critical negotiations.
Democratic reporting back. There is no point lay members accompanying full-time officers to negotiations with the Department of Health, if they are not allowed to report back to the reps who have elected them. To prevent them from reporting back and canvassing opinion means reducing them to little more than decorative features.
A special delegate conference, open to all reps, should decide the recommendation
Full and factual information should be provided to members, not rebadged press releases and spreadsheets
If a deal is no good, the union must say so, and explain to members that serious and co-ordinated industrial action would be needed to shift the government
Above all, it is important work through and value the reps, so that whatever the outcome of any particular struggle, the unions, all of them, emerge stronger from the fight.
Members know that the unions cannot win every fight. But they need to see a determined struggle both in their interests and controlled by them.
July 30, 2018
NOTES:
1. What is in the NHS pay deal?
For all staff – at least 6.5% over 3 years, 3% in the first year, then 1.67% in 2019, 1.5% in 2020. But with Brexit looming inflation is predicted to be 9% over the same period.
For those not at top of scale – accelerated progression to give rises between 10 and 20% over the 3 years. But much of those rises are the increments they would have got anyway.
A form of performance related pay, a long term objective of successive Secretaries of State
Abolition of the lowest pay band, although it would have had to go anyway due to George Osbourne’s increase in the minimum wage.
For Ambulance staff closure of their existing shift system to new starters, or those who gain promotion.
2. What is the NHS workforce and which unions are in the NHS?
The NHS employs around a million workers with a union density somewhere over 50%. It is still the 5th biggest employer in the world. Of those million at least 250,000 are registered nurses who will mainly be in the RCN. Unison has around 250-300,000, with Unite claiming 100,000 in the NHS. The smaller professional unions – Physiotherapists, Midwives, Radiographers, Chiropodists and Dieticians make up around 100,000. GMB might have 30,000 members, maybe less.
