OVER 100 striking NHS facilities workers shouted ‘30p, No,no,no, ISS Shame on You’, as they marched along the quay at Canary Warf beating drums and vuvuzelas, making a din outside the multi-billion pound firm ISS headquarters yesterday.
Staff from the four mental health facilities in South London, the Maudsley, the Royal Bethlem, the Lambeth and Ladywell let the company know, in ascending decibells, that they were not going to give in.
Speaking to the strikers from top of the stairs, with security guards looking helplessly on, GMB Regional Secretary, Justin Bowden said: ‘This is certainly loudest strike we’ve had. I could hear you from a hundred yards away.
‘First of all, we are outside ISS headquarters and it is a great place to be. Of course it’s a Friday so there won’t be an awful lot of the big management cheeses in there.
‘They’ll be at home in their nice big houses, their mansions and their palaces while people like you, that pay their salaries, and generate profits, and do really tough jobs that are vital. (shouts of bullies, bullies could be heard as he spoke) are out here fighting for pay rises, fighting for respect, fighting to end the bullying that you put up with at work.
‘I know that you are going to make a decision shortly, as to whether you continue the strike or not. If you do the union will continue to support you with hardship pay, £55 per person per day (cheers from the crowd).
‘It’s your dispute, it’s your pay rise you are fighting for. You have the absolute support, not just from me as Regional Secretary, but the Regional Committee, the General Secretary and the National President and the Central Executive Committee of the union as well.
‘But in some ways you don’t need any of us because you have the support of each other.
‘I’ve got three pieces of advice, ‘Stick together, Stick together, Stick together.’
Bowden told News Line ‘They have been offered only 2.5%, that is only 30 pence for this year. The company is offering them 90 pence, but that is the back pay that they should have been given last year. It’s been withheld over the previous 12 months.
‘It’s an offer of just over 10% over two years for people doing vital jobs at the frontline in our hospital, keeping the wheels going round, to protect patients and provide a decent service’.
Patsy Gayle from Ladywell Mental Health Hospital said: ‘ISS are underpaying us, don’t want to give us the right holiday, they have kept back money for us. We worked under Covid and they gave us no respect or money.
‘They are not giving us the London Weighting. Some staff on older NHS contracts get it but the rest don’t.
‘I was a transferee from the NHS, and I have worked for 15 years, but because of the ISS takeover, everything has just gone down hill.
‘The contract should be taken away from ISS. They are not good, they don’t treat us good, and to us they are racists.’
Daniela Ionita GMB striker from Ladywell Unit said: ‘I work in the Ladywell Unit which is part of the mental health hospital in Lewisham.
‘We are working at risk, we are working hard and ISS don’t appreciate us.
‘Staff on old NHS contracts get sick pay, but new contracts with ISS get no sick pay at all.
‘They treat us badly. We want more respect. ISS should lose the contract.’
