15.06.1995

Healthworkers’ unity sabotaged

The limitations of the ‘official’ trade union movement have been made obvious over the last few weeks. The RCN wants to go it alone, while the Unison leadership is now having cosy chats with Virginia Bottomley. We need a drastically different approach

THIS WEEK’S annual conference of Unison, the main health union, carried an emergency resolution accusing the Royal College of Nursing leadership of selling out healthworkers.

This is quite justified. Although the RCN is carrying out a ballot of its membership in order to abolish its no-strike rule, its general secretary, Christine Hancock, seems intent on accepting local pay bargaining, which would leave thousands of her members with only the government-funded one percent pay rise, and thousands more with unacceptable strings attached to a further two percent achieved locally.

Last week the RCN suddenly withdrew from all cooperation with the other unions and held separate talks with health secretary Virginia Bottomley. Following these, Hancock claimed “a significant breakthrough”, only to try and pedal back the very next day, stating that they were “nowhere near a deal”.

Bottomley has conceded that nursing student grants and some allowances would be increased by the full three percent nationally, and confirmed that NHS trusts would not be allowed this year to vary nurses’ conditions of service.

But Ken Jarrold, NHS director of human resources, has pointed out that most of the strings did not relate to conditions of service, but to the achievement of ‘targets’: in other words, you get a pay rise only if you agree to cut services and to somebody else losing their job.

Hancock’s go-it-alone sell-out is a disgrace, and is surely out of step with her own members’ feelings, yet Unison’s approach can hardly be called dynamic. Did you know that the union held another nationwide day of protest last week? You can be forgiven for not having noticed it. The original claim for at least eight percent has sunk without trace in favour of a pay-cutting three percent.

Meanwhile, the government’s Audit Commission has reported that some health trusts spend up to 10% of their budget on managers’ pay and perks. Spending on managers rose by 35% since the government introduced its ‘market reforms’ in 1990, and now amounts to just over £1 billion a year.

The Labour Party has no alternative to offer if elected. It does not promise to re-open hospitals or provide any extra money for the health service. Workers’ own action, although difficult to achieve today, is the only way to secure the health service the working class and the vast majority of the population need and desire.