Public Services, and Public Service staff, are under attack. The National Health Service is being brought to its Sixty-Four year old knees with every blow. This is not being done by some foreign power, natural disaster or fifth columnists.
It is being done to us and the people of Britain by our own Government! Talk about ‘friendly fire’!
Think about this: Our own government is destroying a Service that is loved by their own people. Not reforming it, as they like to deceive us with, but, destroying it and selling off the shattered pieces to the highest bidders in the private sector.
Keep Calm And Carry On?
No!
Keep Calm And Recruit! Strengthen The Union!
The background to this butchery is simple – The Coalition Government’s economic policy.
When the announcement that £20 Billion was to be slashed from the NHS funding we all knew we were in for a struggle.
Public Services cannot survive without public money. Public money is controlled by the government. If the government turn the tap off – we are in trouble. Taps are turning off.
The London Ambulance Service (LAS) itself has had a £50m reduction of its funding over five years. This equates (at the moment) to 980 posts not being filled (530 ‘frontline’ and 450 ‘support’).
Although the LAS have approached NHS London & Commissioners to review this, at this moment in time, we have to assume the original figures are correct.
As around 70% of funding within the NHS goes towards staff salaries it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand, that because of this, our jobs and services are at risk.
This risk is real. It is not a fantasy, and it will not go away because some choose to ignore it.
Thousands of jobs within the NHS nationally have already been lost and the newspapers seem to report more and more every week. With those thousands of lost jobs go also thousands of union members.
The attacks are ferocious, huge and political.
Without the Union however, things would be much worse.
Our job is to stem that tide and at the same time defend and preserve, as best as we can, our national agreement (Agenda for Change) which is also under attack.
As you know, many health trusts and Foundation Trusts around England want to withdraw entirely from AfC. In the South West and North East of England health trusts are already putting staff on notice of a change of contract, change of pay rate and change of pay band.
Health Unions, as part of the National Staff Council, have been negotiating with NHS Employers over the last year or two a way of protecting jobs and preserving our National Agreement within the context of the Governments brutal economic assault.
Of course, the NHS Employers, at first, came with a list the length of your arm of changes to AfC that they would like to see. Their proposed changes covered all aspects of the agreement (pay, annual leave etc).
The union has done a great job in reducing the proposed changes down to what is in the Final Proposal attached. This is not of our choosing. In an ideal world nothing would change and everything would carry on as before.
http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/A14979.pdf
We are not in that ideal world at present and we face serious threats to our jobs and future.
As you know by reading the press our union is campaigning hard, and standing up against all these threats, but, as well as that, we need to negotiate to secure the future of Agenda for Change and make sure it is stays a national agreement.
A negotiated settlement is always in the best interest of our members.
We all have a difficult decision to make.
The phrase is used often but we are between a rock and a hard place. There are consequences whether we accept or reject. It will not go away.
None of us can predict the future. We don’t know what will happen for sure either way the decision goes, but, we do ourselves, and our health worker friends and colleagues, a disservice if we simply bury our heads in the sand.
We have a choice – and it is this: Do we defend and protect our National Agreement (AfC) for the future by accepting these changes now? Changes that, although not affecting everyone in the same way, or to the same degree, do change our terms and conditions.
Or do we reject these changes. The threat of rejection is that more English health trusts and Foundation Trusts will withdraw from our National Agreement, leaving us to fight trust by trust.
There are no guarantees either way.
Agenda for Change, for all its faults (and even with these proposed changes) is still the best pay determination system and national terms & conditions ambulance workers have ever had! Don’t let anyone tell you differently!
We will be consulting on these proposed changes throughout December and January. UNISON London Region will be leading the consultations. More detailed information will be sent out very soon.
I believe in Agenda for Change. We all should do what we have to. We should protect it.
We need to recruit those members of staff who are not already in a union. It is vital that we strengthen the union at this time and for the future.
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My thanks to Michael Walker from UNISON London Region for sending me these old Council minutes from 1921.
BATTERSEA BOROUGH COUNCIL MINUTES (February 1921).
In 1900 Battersea Council established six hand wheeled litters for accident cases occurring in the Borough.
The London County Council in recent years established motor ambulances for this purpose, Battersea served from Brixton and Fulham, with the result that the Borough Council’s ambulances are now practically unused. Incidentally we cannot find any legal authority for the establishment or maintainance of these hand ambulances by the council.
We have now asked the Police authorities and the London County Council if they are willing to take over.
The Council has agreed no further expenditure for these hand-held ambulances
We have asked larger companies in the Borough if they want to take over the service
C. S. Ganley Chairman Battersea Borough Council Health Committee 9th February 1921
And the rest, as they say, is history!
Mind you, the way the funding is going we could do with some of those hand-held wheeled litter ambulances!
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Information of all issues can be found elsewhere on our website.
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We are stronger together.
Eric Roberts
Branch Secretary.
