HEALTH trade union members in Bristol will be protesting outside the Bristol Royal Infirmary on Tuesday, 30 October against plans by the South West Pay, Terms and Conditions Consortium to cut pay.
Several hundred health workers will be demonstrating from 7.00am-9.30am on Tuesday.
Union members are appalled by the actions of the consortium – the 20-trust strong body, covering the South West region, including Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire – which wants to tear up national agreements governing pay and conditions, and impose local deals.
Karen Cole, Unite health sector women’s and equalities organiser, said yesterday: ‘Unite will not tolerate any erosion of the national pay agreement, Agenda for Change.
‘It would be wrong for two similarly qualified nurses or pharmacists being paid different rates depending on where they work.
‘We believe that the actions of the consortium are aimed at driving down pay and reducing annual holidays and are part of a softening up process for the privatisation of the NHS.’
Helen Hancox, Royal College of Nursing officer, said: ‘There are already staff shortages in hospitals in the South West, and SW health workers will leave to take up employment elsewhere if they have worse pay and conditions than in other areas of the country.
‘Alongside the swingeing cuts being imposed by the government, this has the potential to have a severe impact on patient care in the region.’
• The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) will accelerate the slide into poverty of 150,000 people working on the land in England and Wales, Unite warned yesterday.
Unite is calling on agriculture minister David Heath to extend the consultation on the future of the AWB to at least 12 weeks, so that interested bodies, particularly small organisations, have enough time to formulate their arguments for the retention of the AWB.
Currently, the consultation is due to close on 12 November, after just four weeks.
Unite national officer Matt Draper accused DEFRA of moving at ‘breakneck speed’, stressing that rural communities are economically fragile where low wages are the norm – and to afford some protection against rural poverty was the reason that the AWB, which has it origins in the First World War, came into being in the first place.
• Yesterday the NUT and a large coalition of unions, teachers’ professional bodies, local councils and schools formally issued High Court proceedings against the exam regulator Ofqual and exam boards AQA and Edexcel.
Papers were served on these three defendants with the aim of a speedy hearing. The claim is a comprehensive legal challenge to the arbitrary marking of this year’s English GCSEs, carried out contrary to statutory requirements and with no warning to teachers or pupils of substantial changes in the marking schemes.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: ‘The Education Secretary should have taken the lead from Wales and re-graded this year’s English GCSEs.
‘The NUT, as part of a coalition of other interested parties, has been left with no option but to try and redress through the courts the great injustice suffered this year by schools and pupils.’
