Re-instate Karen Reissmann

Karen Reissmann, one of UNISON's leading NHS activists, has been sacked by her employer for the crime of being an effective trade unionist. This is an attack on all health workers - if they can pick off just one trade union representative for speaking out, then they can come after any of us.

Karen spoke up for her colleagues, her service, her patients, and eventually for herself. These were her crimes, and for this the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust say they are sacking her, for bringing them into disrepute. It seems to NHS worker that the Trust, and Chief Executive Sheila Foley needed no help from Karen in that regard - they are a disreputable gang of union-busting low-lifes already! They are willing to deprive their patients of a dedicated and caring nurse just because she also happens to be a dedicated and caring trade unionist.

We say "re-instate Karen" and we call on all health workers to rally to Karen's support. Her UNISON branch is already organising strike action to win her re-instatement, and we hope that it is fully supported by everyone in the trade union movement.

This is not just a battle for this year

The government is either looking for a fight or so confident that they can get away with year on year cuts in public sector pay that it is willing to stage next year's pay offer and tie it to amount of money allocated to the NHS in the next Comprehensive Spending Review, which is due to be announced in the third week of October.
Mike Jackson accepts that inflation is running at 4.8% yet has not called on Unison members to reject the 2% offer we have been offered for this year. They seem to be grateful that the government is willing to talk about terms and conditions. It reminds me of a story of a farm worker who told me that in the past they were expected to show subservience to the owners by lowering their cap when they passed. 
We need to say NO to this year's insulting offer and fight for above inflation rise for next year

http://www.nursing-standard.co.uk/thisweek/news3.asp

UNISON officials threaten branches and activists over pay campaign

UNISON branches have been told they do not have the democratic right to make a recommendation to their members to reject the pay offer. Presumably the same restriction would be applied to any branches which wanted to recommend their members vote to accept the pay offer but since none have so far decided to do so, we simply don't know.

However, UNISON national officers have also criticised individual activists, especially those with elected positions at a national level of the union, for signing a declaration committing themselves to voting to reject the pay offer. This statement was recently published on this website, and over fifty signatures of prominent UNISON activists were collected in a few days. However, in the light of this campaign of intimidation being waged by the UNISON national officials, we have decided to remove the list of individual names from the statement in order to avoid them facing any punitive action by the union bureaucracy.

Of course, UNISON members will be asking themselves why a union which claims to be both democratic and member-led would feel it necessary to make such a heavy-handed response to a statement signed by only a few dozen prominent activists. We can only assume that those who pushed so hard for the union not to make any recommendation against the pay offer did so because they actually want the membership to fall for the idea that the new offer is actually a significant improvement on the old one. Any credible campaign to mobilise members in opposition to the new offer, and in support of the union's original claim - for a pay rise in line with inflation, unstaged and with the abolition of the lowest pay band - would therefore be a threat to their hopes for a peaceful reconciliation with the Department of Health.

Nursing Times says majority want to reject pay offer

The Nursing Times has an article in it this week reporting on an opinion poll conducted on its own website in which 87% said that the health unions should reject the new pay offer. They quote one nurse saying "the government needs to realise an enormously important principle is at stake - a measly £38 [all that qualified nurses will see of the new offer] does not begin to address it".

Clearly, the unions' own campaigns earlier in the year have had a big impact - on health workers if not on the Government negotiators. NHS staff now rightly believe that they deserve a pay rise which is both (a) at least in line with inflation, and (b) not broken down into stages. If the unions (or at least some of them) now want us to accept such an offer because "it is the best offer that can be achieved through negotiations" then they have a problem.

The current offer simply isn't good enough. If it is the best that can be got without taking industrial action, then most health workers would say, "let's take action". The Nursing Times poll backs up that view, and also suggests that the unions could be in danger of falling behind their own members. RCN members have voted overwhelmingly this week in favour of being balloted for industrial action, yet the union is putting everything on hold for a month because of the new, marginally improved, offer, and is already talking about running a further consultation exercise in September.

Presumably the RCN is hoping that by then the UNISON and Unite consultations will have generated either a majority in favour of accepting the offer or a low enough turnout that the officials can declare that "there is no mood for industrial action amongst members" - a refrain we're all getting heartily sick of in UNISON. There's no mood to accept a pay cut, either!

The unions are falling over themselves to avoid being the ones to declare first what they're going to do about the pay offer. They all know the offer is inadequate. Today's news from the RCN and the Nursing Times shows that NHS staff know it too. Yet the UNISON national officials continue to describe the offer in press statements and circulars to branches simply as "improved" and "offering more help to the low paid" with no mention of the fact that it remains a below inflation rise even for those getting the most "help". Unite-Amicus go one step further by actually recommending that their members should accept the new offer, even though it represents a pay cut.

For all their talk of using the consultation ballot to recruit new members, the unions seem scared to do the one thing which would have the non-union NHS workers (possibly as many as half of our colleagues are not even in a union) flocking to sign up: run a serious campaign to encourage us to reject the offer and do what is necessary to win the pay rise we deserve.

The first union to work this out, and switch their policy away from talk to action will see a massive increase in membership. But if none of them are willing to risk falling out with Gordon Brown over his 2% pay limit then this year's pay campaign could lead not just to a below inflation pay rise but also to people ripping up their union cards in disgust. Unite Amicus needs to desperately reconsider its ill-judged decision to recommend the new offer to members, while UNISON has about five days to put out some better publicity for the ballot - and if the national leadership can't or won't do so, then we'd encourage UNISON branches to restore the balance by telling their members the truth about how far below our demands the current offer really is.

Truth, lies and NHS pay offers

UNISON West Midlands has a statement on its website about the new NHS pay offer.

It says, "The offer includes a lump sum payment for the lowest paid NHS staff, training budgets for non- clinical staff, recognition payments amounting to the recent increase in NMC registration fees for those NHS staff required to register, agreement to enter in to talks on improvements to the Agenda for Change pay structure and terms and conditions."

Which, of course, is not true. There is no "lump sum payment for the lowest paid". There is a flat-rate element to the offer which means lower paid NHS staff will get a marginal greater increase to their pay scale. Not only is there no lump sum but the increase to the pay scale is being brought in only with the second stage of the staged pay offer - which means low paid NHS members won't see a penny of it until November!

As if over-selling the pay offer isn't bad enough, the article goes on to provide a link to a description of the pay offer on the website of NHS employers - who, naturally, think that union members should all accept the offer. In the interests of balance they should probably provide a link here too, so that members in the West Midlands can hear something from those healthworkers who think that we should reject the pay offer. Don't hold your breath, though...

Several UNISON members have been commenting that the official union statements seem to be making the offer sound better than it really is. The agreed position of the UNISON Health SGE, remember, was to make no recommendation for or against the offer, but simply to say it was the best deal that could be achieved by negotiations.

Yet the statements produced so far have repeatedly described the offer as "improved" without mentioning how far it is from the claim we submitted back in March. And it's actually arguable whether the offer really is improved. It is certainly "changed", but for many NHS staff above band 4 the only things it offers are a £25 training allowance paid to their employers and talks about talks on the non-pay elements of the 2007 claim. That's not much in the way of an improvement.

Even for those who stand to gain the most from the revisions to the pay offer - those in pay band 1 and 2 - the new offer is not even worth 2.5%. That means that we'd all have been better off winning the scrapping of the staging rather than cooking up such a complex pay offer but leaving the staging in place.

Why we will be voting to reject the pay offer

The following statement is being circulated by activists in UNISON who intend to reject the revised pay offer in the consultative ballot. If you would like to add your name to the list of signatories, please do so by posting a comment to this blog article.

However, UNISON national officers have criticised individual activists, especially those with elected positions at a national level of the union, for signing this declaration committing themselves to voting to reject the pay offer. In the light of this campaign of intimidation being waged by the UNISON national officials, we have decided to remove the list of individual names from the statement in order to avoid them facing any punitive action by the union bureaucracy.

We the undersigned believe that the latest offer from the NHS employers
is not enough to satisfy our demands for a pay rise this year.

As UNISON's health conference agreed in April, we believe that "such a pay increase, below the level of the Retail Price Index (RPI) now at 4.8% and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) now at 3.1%, would represent a pay cut in real terms and would have a significant impact on the standard of living for staff who include some of the lowest paid in the NHS. Coupled with the significant increases in energy costs, council tax and travel costs, health workers would see no benefit from such a low pay increase."

We believe that the unions' pay demand was right: health workers need a significant pay increase above the rate of RPI inflation, with all those on bands 1, 2 and 3 receiving a flat rate increase, and to have the other elements of our pay demand met. The new offer from the employers does not measure up on any of these aspects of the pay demand.

We therefore intend to vote to reject this offer in the consultative ballot, and prepare for a campaign of industrial action to win a decent pay rise, alongside other public sector workers.

All signatories in a personal capacity.

58 UNISON representatives, branch, regional and national lay member activists

Comment on pay offer and how to fight it

NHS Pay: Final offer1.9% AND CRUMBS.

Reject the deal, organise now for action

Mike Fenwick, Airedale UNISON Health Branch (PC)

5 months negotiation since the initial offer of a staged 2.5% have produced no real results. With the government committed to maintaining a 2 % pay freeze for the public sector little was expected and certainly little has been offered. Staging the deal meant that it would be worth only 1.9%. So health service staff were being offered less than the governments own  
suggested raise. This meant Alan Johnston and the treasury would save millions. It also allowed a little wiggle room from which a few extra enticements could be found.

So the final offer, published at the beginning of August, now includes a little extra for the lowest paid, some contribution toward professional registration fees  and an additional training allowance of £25 per employee.  
Overall still a pay cut.

More threateningly the government want to make this year the basis for a three year deal capped at 2%. With inflation at nearly 5% now that could mean at the end of three years a 10% pay cut in real terms for NHS staff. To this they also want to add a productivity deals which can only mean asking staff to work more for less.
 
In Scotland, Wales and now Northern Ireland the local governments have agreed to pay the 2.5% unstaged.  Whilst that is better it cannot be claimed as a victory it still represents a pay cut. 

The unions are now asking their members to vote on the deal. The RCN have already balloted although their focus has been on getting rid of the staging rather than fighting for an award in line with inflation. The result of their ballot is due this week.

In UNISON the Service Group Executive have decided to call for a consultative ballot so postponing the industrial action ballot mandated by health conference if the deal was not significantly improved. Only a small minority on the committee voted in line with policy and lost to those who either lack confidence to fight or worse those would accept a pay cut for their members rather than upset Gordon Brown’s honeymoon period.

A campaign to organise a No vote has already been set up before ballot papers arrive on 20th August. Based at http://NHSworker.blogspot.com this grassroots group is asking UNISON members to reaffirm their commitment to conference policy and an above inflation pay rise and organise the fight to win it.
 

With the postal workers still in dispute, local government workers due to move to a ballot and possible action from teachers and others the possibility exists to create a significant challenge to the pay freeze. But it should also be seen as a challenge to New Labour’s current ‘commitment’
to public services which amounts to privatising as much of it as possible.  Having a low paid and insecure work force makes it easier to persuade the private sector to buy in.
 

The fight is not just about the amount of money in an individual nurse’s pocket but part of the struggle to maintain a decent public health service. Reject the deal and use the time to build for the industrial action that will be needed to secure a better future for the NHS and its staff.
 
Prepare for the ballot by signing the statement here by leaving a comment on the post
Why we are calling on UNISON members to reject the pay offer and your name will added to the list of signatures
Download the statement and leaflet and circulate amongst your colleagues.
 
Organise a workplace meeting to present the case against the pay freeze. Get branch meetings and committees to call early meetings to organise a No Vote.
 
Link up with other public sector workers and community campaigners in building for the national demo for the NHS on November 3rd.