UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis yesterday announced that NHS Logistics staff have voted overwhelmingly to take strike action to defend their service from privatisation.
Prentis made the announcement during his speech to move Composite Motion 9 on the NHS at the TUC Congress.
Attacking ‘Labour’s market madness in the NHS’, Prentis said that ‘newly-qualified nurses, doctors, and health professionals are struggling to find jobs, to use their vital skills to save and improve life. What a waste.’
He said health workers have been left ‘dazed by a permanent revolution, driven by those who believe the market knows best’ as NHS Trusts compete against each other for patients.
Prentis said he was ‘proud’ to represent staff at NHS Logistics.
‘A Labour government is quite literally parcelling up and packaging off this public service to DHL.
‘But I am proud to announce that today, UNISON members in NHS Logistics voted overwhelmingly to take strike action to protect their service,’ he continued to applause and cheers.
‘Our members have the full support of our union and the resources available to it. Your fight is our fight.’
Seconding the motion, Gemma Richardson-Williams, Society of Radiographers, said that if the development of private services continues then the NHS ‘will be no more than a logo for a group of corporate chains’.
She asked: ‘What good is an NHS when my patients are seen as commodities and come second to profits?’
Supporting the motion, Irene Danks, Prospect, said: ‘We are sick and tired of the number crunchers, the phoney targets, the PFI, the PPP mantra, that dictate that our hospitals must be mortgaged to the hilt so private companies and their directors and shareholders can make a profit.’
The motion on the NHS called upon the TUC General Council to ‘coordinate a major campaign across health unions, patients, users and professional groups and communities, to challenge the marketisation of the NHS and halt further privatisation’.
It also urged the General Council to ‘organise a demonstration in spring 2007 to take forward these demands.’
