YESTERDAY, marked the first of 10 days of strike action by security staff at St Thomas’ hospital by Westminster Bridge in central London.
Some of the people picketing spoke to News Line.
Craig Brown, union rep for Unite said: ‘We are out because our pay is still on Band 3.
‘We want Band 4 to match all the other major hospitals. When we were brought in-house we actually lost money and our conditions are worse.
‘Last time we were on strike for a week. This time we’ve upped it to 10 days to show we’re not taking it any more.
‘In particular, we’ve had enough of this management team. There are lots of complaints about them from the staff.
‘This is a hard job. When the terrorist attack took place on Westminster Bridge, I was the first person on the scene.
‘In a central location like this one, all kinds of things can happen. So we need to be properly paid.’
Another picket, Aamna Iqbal, spoke about holiday pay. ‘Last year we were getting 27 days holiday plus bank holidays. Now we only get 23 days including bank holidays! That’s a reduction of about 12 days.
‘They also took away our pay during break time. Agency workers get that but we don’t. There’s a huge amount of stress in this job. We get emergency calls all the time.’
