NHS strike ballot: You clapped us, now pay us!
Sean Robertson, NHS worker and GMB rep
Last month, August, all the NHS unions held a consultative ballot on whether to accept the Scottish government’s ‘final’ pay offer of 5% backdated to April.
This pay offer represents a real terms pay cut of at least 8% as inflation measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI) stands at over 13% and rising.
Added to this is the 20% cut in the value of wages endured over the last decade. All the NHS unions rejected the offer, by between 89% and 97%, a massive vote to reject and a decisive mandate for the unions to fight for more.
Immediately after the result was declared, workers’ hopes were raised that a new, substantially improved offer would be forthcoming when health secretary Humza Yousef tweeted that he would immediately get back round the table with unions to thrash out an acceptable deal.
Four weeks on and Yousef and the Scottish Government are still silent. The contempt with which the employers hold us in will only be remedied by decisive action. Because of this, all unions are now balloting for strike action.
It is hoped that a positive return from a strike ballot will force the government back round the table.
Striking workers in the councils across Scotland in the last few weeks have forced major concessions from the government, who moved from an initial position of offering 2% to council workers to up to 10% for the lowest paid.
It is inconceivable then that a government faced with a united workforce would not offer a similar pay offer to other public sector workers, but this still represents a substantial pay cut.
Only an inflation busting rise would represent a substantive victory for workers. Union leaders may feel pressure to urge acceptance of an offer equivalent the council workers’ proposed deal, but workers should push leaders to keep fighting.
strike together
Recent strikes in RMT and CWU have shown that union leaders can be pushed to the left by a determined fight from below.
If we move to strike action, NHS unions should seek to coordinate our strikes with other unions taking action at the same time.
The Covid pandemic has shone a light on the chronic underfunding in the NHS. The service is understaffed and under resourced.
If we want the NHS, and for that matter our jobs, to be sustainable in the long term, then employment in the service must be economically viable.
Over 50% of staff have contemplated leaving the service in the last year, and thousands have left.
There are tens of thousands of unfilled vacancies in the NHS. I love the NHS and what it stands for. Therefore, I will be voting to save the service and voting for strike action.
