“The porters are striking on behalf of all of us”
By Philip Stott
In the longest running strike in the city for over twenty years, the Dundee hospital porters at Ninewells and Royal Victoria hospitals are into their 10th week of action.
Later this week the Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee (STAC) review into the porters demands will be published. Unite has produced a clear and unarguable case that the porters should have been placed on band two over ten years ago under the NHS Agenda For Change procedure. Indeed three AFC panels ruled that they should be on the higher grade. Management initiated a fourth panel that concluded that the porters at Ninewells and Royal Victoria should be on a band one.
However, despite repeated requests for documented proof that the trade union had signed the agreement, NHS bosses have failed to provide it.
As Unite senior steward Graham Nelson told us: “Few of us have any real faith in STAC delivering a report that delivers for the porters. If it does then fine, but we want face-to-face talks with NHS Tayside to ensure we get a band two grading for all porters, full-time jobs and permanent posts for the temporary porters and compensation for being underpaid for so long. Whatever STAC says the strike will continue until our demands are met.”
Striking porter Mark Gilligan told the Socialist, “The last ten weeks has been like one big learning curve and bonding session. We’re a hundred times stronger as a group than when we started our strike action. One thing that is clear is when the time comes we’ll be going back more united and determined than even before. I would guess that’s a nightmare scenario for management. They’ll get away with nothing from now on.”
striking for all of us
The porters are critical to the running of the hospitals. Everything from patient movement to the mail room, medical records to clinical waste and the supply of bedding and linen is undertaken by the porters. Management have been taking on portering duties but are failing to cope. They had hoped to rely on other NHS staff to fully cover for the strike but as one report in the local press from a hospital worker last week exposed; “ There is general support for the porters, and the nurses have been facing their own pay dispute which has taken years and it feels like the porters are striking on behalf of all of us. It is absolute rubbish when the management say everything is under control. We’re at the end of our tether.”
Solidarity from the wider NHS staff, trade unionists and the public has been crucial to the strike from the start. “The cheques and donations keep pouring in”, Graham Nelson explained, “Just this morning a guy stopped at the picket line on his motorbike and handed in £200 in cash – I’ve no idea who he was. We went through to Perth last week to the EIS teachers union conference and delegates donated £300 in the buckets. We’ve also had £100 from Glasgow City Unison whose own caseworkers are in their 11th week of action. £1,000 was also given from the Tayside Unite health branch. The public support is inspiring.”
parliament protest
Over 100 porters, striking Glasgow caseworkers and supporters protested at the Scottish parliament on the day that the porters case was being raised. The so-called “anti-austerity” SNP and their public representatives have completely failed to back the porters. However, this protest and the lobbies at SNP MSPs surgeries in Dundee are having an impact. First minster Nicola Sturgeon broke her silence and said in parliament, “the porters are a fantastic bunch of people” and “I am hopeful that it [STAC] will lead to a successful resolution.”
The unity and solidarity among the porters was marked last week at the funeral of one of their own. There was a huge turnout by the porters for Grahame “Findus” Nicholson who died on Friday 29 May. Grahame was buried with the red flag of his Unite trade union and a striking porters T-shirt. It is to Grahame, his family and friends that this article is dedicated.
