By Andy Ford, Unite NHS rep.
“Power in a Union” is not a headline you see very often in Health Service Journal, the magazine aimed at NHS managers. Yes, this was the caption for the story of Bolton NHS staff winning a 14% pay rise.
The staff are mainly Unison members, employed at Bolton Hospital by a wholly-owned Subsidiary (WOS) called iFM (Integrated Facilities Management) Bolton. This WOS has been going a number of years carrying out both the hospital’s ‘hard’ FM, such as estates, maintenance and energy management; and the ‘soft’ FM which is cleaning, catering, and laundry.
When the company was set up, never mind a two-tier workforce, iFM had a three-tier workforce – firstly, the original NHS workers who were TUPE’d into the company, secondly any new starters who came in on the new company’s own (non-HS) terms and conditions, and thirdly, workers who used to be employed by private contractor ISS and were also TUPE’d into iFM. This last group of workers were paid substantially below even the low rates of NHS Band 1.
It is this third group of workers who have taken action. When the NHS pay award was agreed earlier this year the initial stance of the company was to not pay. Enough was enough and the caterers, cleaners and domestics balloted and took strike action. The company have now agreed to bring them into line with NHS pay rates – a 14% increase!
The pay rise is staged over the next two years with some productivity strings but still, a win is a win.
Hopefully other low paid and out-sourced workers across the NHS will see the results, organise themselves into their unions, and insist on pay equality with the NHS. Everyone in the NHS makes their contribution – so we should all be in the same pay system and the same terms and conditions.
Further information: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/2018/10/hospital-workers-celebrate-ifm-bolton-agrees-pay-nhs-rates-full/
November 19, 2018
