‘If the government doesn’t halt the transfer of NHS Logistics to DHL immediately, then action must be taken by the whole trade union movement to stop it taking place.’
That was the reaction yesterday of Paul Harper, UNISON branch secretary at the NHS Logistics depot in Maidstone, Kent, after the overwhelming rejection of the Labour government’s NHS privatisation drive in two votes at the Labour Party conference in Manchester.
A UNISON national spokesman demanded that the government ‘hit the pause button’ on privatisation, after a UNISON motion to the Labour conference was carried by an overwhelming show of hands on Wednesday.
The motion demanded the government ‘rethink the headlong rush to a competitive system’.
NHS Logistics is due to transfer to parcel firm DHL on Sunday, and Harper told News Line: ‘Not even anyone in the Labour Party itself wants privatisation.
‘The general public doesn’t want it, and now the Labour Party has told the Cabinet they don’t want it as well.
‘I want to see the privatisation of NHS Logistics halted now.’
‘I think absolutely that the transfer should be scrapped.’
He added: ‘We’ve heard that DHL are planning to throw parties in our canteens on Monday, when the transfer is due to have gone through. I think it’s an insult.
‘It’s an insult to all of us who have been on picket lines, because we don’t accept it.’
Harper said: ‘I’d like to see the whole NHS trade union body and the whole trade union movement come out on strike to stop this privatisation, if that’s what it takes.
‘If the government doesn’t halt the transfer to DHL immediately, then action must be taken by the whole trade union movement, – especially everyone signed up to NHS Together – to stop it taking place.’
The GMB general union backed the UNISON motion passed by the Labour conference.
Dave Powell, the GMB’s lead NHS officer for the London region, said he was ‘absolutely delighted’ by the double defeat for the government in Manchester.
‘But the government won’t listen, because they never listen,’ he told News Line.
He added: ‘I think the trade union movement needs to take the government head on to defeat privatisation of the NHS.
‘I personally think that if they don’t withdraw the privatisation of the NHS, then the whole union movement must come out.
‘It’s too serious an issue: as soon as the private sector and profit take over, then the NHS becomes a profit-making organisation.
‘I will support action by the wider trade union movement if NHS Logistics is privatised on October 1, and more fundamentally, I believe our members would.’
Asked for UNISON’s reaction to the overwhelming support for its composite motion and the defeat of the NEC statement, a UNISON spokesman told News Line: ‘We’re absolutely delighted that the conference voted to support our line. It’s now Labour Party policy.
‘It was clear the majority of Constituency Labour Parties supported our stance on the NHS and privatisation.
‘And we now call on the government to take notice of the motion and hit the pause button.’
Asked about the imminent privatisation of NHS Logistics to parcel firm DHL on October 1, the union’s spokesman added: ‘We’ve asked Andy Burnham and Patricia Hewitt to delay the transfer so that all those employment issues can be sorted out.
‘We were not impressed by Hewitt’s speech on Wednesday.’
UNISON’s spokesman said that ‘further action would be for the union and the members at NHS Logistics to decide.
‘We have Labour Party policy now. We expect Labour Party policy to be implemented.’
Sharon Holder, of the GMB, who spoke at the Labour conference in support of UNISON’s motion, told News Line: ‘The demands that UNISON have put in the motion, which were supported by myself on behalf of the GMB, should now be implemented.
‘All of us want to hear from the Secretary of State as soon as possible to arrange a meeting to discuss the way forward.
‘Our belief is that it shouldn’t be transferred to DHL.’
Holder added: ‘It is fair to say there is a quite large degree of exceptional unrest in the NHS at the moment, which we would like to sit down and be able to resolve rationally, in a way that NHS staff and patients, more importantly, and the public understand.’
