Inflation 4.6%; Next Year's Pay Rise 2.4%

With inflation continuing to rise at record speed, there is yet no sign of the so-called 're opener' clause being invoked. There is almost no mention of the latest inflation figures on the RCN or Unison websites. The RCN does claim that the increase in mileage allowances will help staff travelling to and from work, but they fail to mention that you are not normally allowed to claim for travel to your normal workplace.

The increase in mileage allowances will mostly benefit those already on higher pay. In the NHSBT it is only nurses that can claim mileage allowances for travelling to sessions, whilst donor carers not only can't claim for this but are sometimes forced to claim fewer hours than the normal team times if they make their own way to session.

If staff need to use cars for work, they should be provided by the employer. Increasing allowances only encourages people to drive more and does nothing to help reduce carbon emissions. Whilst most of the car allowances are above the levels recommended by the inland revenue (which is 40 pence a mile) the cycling allowance is only half the recommended level with the latest increase to ten pence a mile.

New Mileage Allowances

The new mileage allowances have been agreed. The full figures are available on the NHS Employers website.

Day of Action

Unite has called for a day of action to oppose the poor pay deal that Unison and the RCN negotiated with the NHS management. With worsening inflation, the 2.75% pay increase in the first year looks even worse than it did when the original proposals came out. If the pay deal is accepted, it would be the second year running that we have had a greater than 2% pay cut and with very low pay increases proposed for the second and third years of the contract, that looks set to run even further.

There is meant to be a so-called 're-opener' clause to re-negotiate the pay rates if inflation worsens but if that is the case, why has it not been invoked already?

The voting turnout was not very high for any of the unions though the Unison turnout has not been publicised. One Unison official has put it at 17% which certainly shows a marked lack of enthusiasm for the new deal. If the total number of votes cast by all of the unions is added up, the pay deal was probably defeated as the anti vote in some of the smaller unions was as high as 96% whilst the pro vote in Unison was 64%.

Perhaps the ballot should be rerun as a single ballot for all NHS employees so that all of these arguments over who voted for what and what the turnouts were could be settled.