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.