NHS
As health workers prepare for ballot, Unison leaders back off
Unison national secretary has angered union activists by demanding that local branches take a position of neutrality on the issue of a below inflation pay offer.
With Unison also preparing to ballot members for strike action over pay on the 20th August, days after 95% Royal College of Nursing members asked to be balloted for strike action, Unison’s leadership have sent a message to all branches demanding that activists take no position on the government’s below inflation pay offer.
NHS/UNISON health workers disappointed at low pay increase offer
UNISON calls government pay increase "paltry." Improved offer expected; NHS ballot in August-September will determine outcome.
NHS employers and union representatives meet today to discuss a new settlement for health staff in England.
Mike Jackson, UNISON’s lead negotiator, said the unions were hopeful there would be more money on the table.
1977: The great Northampton General Hospital lie in
A short history of a successful example of creative direct action against healthcare rationing in a British hospital.
30 years ago: Rita Ward and the Great Northampton Hospital ‘lie-in”
We hear a lot these days about the ‘creeping privatisation’ of the NHS. We have a Labour government committed to turning our free National Health Service into just another business along the lines of the American model, which sees poor people refused medical treatment because they can’t afford it.
Anger at cuts as £500m NHS surplus found
Union leaders today reacted angrily to the news that the NHS has underspent by £500m as a result of aggressive cuts imposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary.
Faced with projected deficits for the second year running, NHS trusts were put under pressure to economise by closing wards, laying off staff and delaying patients' operations until the start of the new financial year. A Guardian analysis of health authority figures has revealed the huge surplus.
NHS workers threaten summer strike
A summer of discontent across the NHS in England and Wales was threatened yesterday by Unison, the public service union, in protest at a below-inflation pay increase.
John Carvel, social affairs editor
Tuesday April 24, 2007
From The Guardian
Representatives of the union's 450,000 health workers voted unanimously at their conference in Brighton to ballot for industrial action up to and including strikes.
Hospital cleaners stage walk out
Cleaners and catering staff at a hospital in Neath, Wales, staged a 24-hour strike in protest yesterday at what they say is a decrease in working hours.
Staff at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, contracted by OCS Ltd, say they have been told their hours are to be cut. Officials from trade union Unison said the 140 staff affected are angry and added an independent report recommended hours should in fact be increased. But a spokesperson for OCS denied there had been a cut in working hours.
Protests across the UK over NHS cuts
Health workers and their supporters have been holding local demonstrations across the country in protest over cuts in jobs and services.
The national day of action was organised by NHS Together, a combination of unions and local NHS staff groups. The protests aim to highlight that services are under increasing threat from budget deficits and privatisation.
Manchester NHS workers on strike
250 employees of Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust will take their first day´s strike today, Wednesday January 31st. This follows a 91.6% ballot result in favour of strike action.
The strike action will be taken by 250 community nurses, occupational therapists and team secretaries to stop the cuts in community mental health teams which include:
* reduction in staffing numbers in community mental health teams and consequent higher caseloads, and a reduction in service to keep people well
Nurses asked to do unpaid work to avoid "significant job losses"
Health campaigners have condemned an NHS trust for asking its staff to resign, work for no pay or take unpaid leave in order to reduce its multimillion-pound deficit.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which reported a £16. 7m deficit last year, has sent staff a letter asking them to work unpaid for a day, take six months unpaid leave, take voluntary redundancy or defer taking five days of their holiday until next year to help balance its books.
Occupational therapy - the incomplete story of the University College Hospital strikes and occupations of 1992-4
The story of the (ultimately unsuccessful) struggle to keep a hospital open despite the efforts of the government, the Area Health Authority, management, University College London and the Wellcome Foundation and Trust.
From the http://www.endangeredphoenix.com website.
Occupational Therapy - the incomplete story of the University College Hospital strikes occupations of 1992/3/4 was put together by a number of individals in the UCH occupation together with help and suggestions from others, London 1995.
