14.09.1995

Health unions cave in

Told to settle for low pay

IT IS very difficult to find words strong enough for the abysmal performance of the health union leaders in this year’s pay round.

Having conducted a noisy, seven-month public relations campaign to retain national pay bargaining, they are now recommending that their members accept exactly what was on offer in February. The NHS employers offered a paltry one percent national rise with the possibility of gaining a further two percent through local negotiations. Even those ‘lucky’ enough to win the maximum end up with a pay cut in real terms.

Unison and the other unions ran a drawn-out, half-hearted campaign among their own members and finally balloted them for industrial action. But on the very eve of winning a small, but clear majority ‘yes’ vote, they ran cap in hand to the employers to accept the original deal for this year. Unison has refused to release the official results, on the grounds that the membership will now be reballoted.

They are trumpeting the fact that from next year the pay of those workers who fall behind will be upgraded to a nationally agreed figure which “reflects the outcome of the local settlements”. This will provide the starting point for local negotiations in 1996.

The deal allows the weakest to catch up with the average award each year - but always 12 months later. At the same time low settlements will themselves drag down the average, while the government will continue to fix a pay-cutting ceiling.

Bob Abberley, Unison's head of health, had the audacity to describe these arrangements as having achieved “a minimum wage”. A minimum wage which starts with a pay cut to below the present poverty level and will continue to shrink every year!

The Royal College of Nursing, having earlier abandoned its previous common front alongside the other unions, last week attempted to pose as the true defenders of its members’ interests by turning down the settlement. However its own policy is to give the go-ahead to local deals once 300 NHS trusts have agreed the full three percent without strings. On Tuesday it announced that target has been reached. RCN members in the remaining 200 trusts will be left to sink.

Alan Fox