The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 6th June 2025
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 6th June 2025
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
In the week in which it was announced that Britain would be increasing its military spending from 2.5 to three per cent and would be forced by NATO to increase it to 3.5, most likely at the expense of public services, it was telling that the unions had little to say on that important matter.
Of the general NHS unions, Unison and GMB remained silent, the former out of its customary blind loyalty to the Labour Government, and the latter because it has members in the ‘defence’ industries. Worse but perfectly predictable was the view of Unite, which came out in favour of the increase, welcoming “the government’s commitment to intertwine increased defence spending, with developing the UK’s defence industry”, adding that Sir Keir Starmer makes good on his promise to “translate defence spending into British growth, British jobs, British skills, British innovation”. So long as they are British built, new submarines are essential to end the “the feast and famine approach to defence procurement spending, that has long afflicted the sector”.
NHS Pay
According to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), whose writ covers England, all NHS staff will be awarded “above-inflation pay rises for second year in a row as government recognises their hard work in rebuilding our broken NHS”.
In addition, the DHSC promises that the outcome of the Pay Review Body (PRB) recommendations will appear in pay packets from August. The rises will be funded by cutting duplication and waste in the central health budget. Frontline services will not face cuts to pay for the increases claims the Department, but it is clear that is already happening.
The deal includes a four per cent rise for consultants, and specialty doctors, GPs and dentists will get improved con tracts while “non-pay arrangements” are to be approved. Further down the food chain, Agenda for Change (AfC) staff, including nurses, health visitors, midwives, ambulance staff, porters and cleaners, get a 3.6 per cent rise.
The response from the NHS unions was generally unfavourable. The doctor’s trade union, the British Medi cal Association (BMA), is not happy with the 5.4 per cent for Resident Doctors, formerly known as ‘Junior Doctors’. Under the command of Ross Niewoudt and Melissa Ryan a new grass-roots campaign has emerged under the name of ‘DoctorsVote’ to fight for full restoration of pay to 2008 real-term levels, under the slo gan of “be a crab, not a scab”. This would mean a 29 per cent increase, despite their 22 per cent rise last year.
DoctorsVote is campaign ing for a Yes vote in a strike ballot. Dr Niewoudt told the Times that: “Pay restoration isn’t a demand, it’s a necessity. Doctors are leaving. Moral is breaking, the government is gambling with the future of the NHS.” He also accused Health Secretary Wes Streeting of “Betraying” a promise made just last year to help restore pay. “If you promise a journey and then stop at the first lay-by, that’s not a negotiation, that’s betrayal.”
Nicola Ranger, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) General Secretary, said: “This pay award is entirely swallowed up by inflation and does nothing to change the status quo – where nursing is not valued, too few enter the profession and too many quit.”
In the ambulance service and elsewhere in the NHS, GMB has started balloting its members on the grounds that the 3.6 per cent is adequate. Rachel Harrison, GMB’s NHS National Secretary, said “we’re pleased dedicated NHS staff will get their pay rise closer to their anniversary date than they have in previous years”, but warned that; “The decision on whether this pay award is acceptable is for GMB members to decide.”
The union highlighted the particular case of the East of England Ambulance Service where the NHS Trust has confirmed plans to close the Bedford Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), “which could place significant strain on ambulance cover across the East of England and leave a large EOC centre staff have also been told to either relocate to the more expensive areas of Chelmsford or Norwich, secure another role within the Trust, or take redundancy. This single example alone refutes Streeting’s claim that frontline services are not at risk.
GMB Regional Organiser Donna Thomas said: “This closure would have a serious knock-on effect for ambulance cover across the region. It represents a potential threat to public safety, particularly as the Trust is already failing on call wait times. We are deeply concerned about the impact it could have on our members, who will be faced with the difficult choice to either relocate, redeploy, or find themselves out of work.”
The Pharmacists’ Defence Association, which has 7,000 members in the NHS, did not sound too happy because the award is only marginally above the latest 3.5 inflation rate and fails to compensate for earlier higher inflation, and warns it could possibly ballot for industrial action.
Local Battles
Other disputes about pay, cuts and conditions are underway. In Cambridge staff at Cam bridge University Hospitals, particularly at Addenbrooke’s, are being forced to protect their jobs from drastic cuts that could amount to 500 job losses among porters, estate workers such as maintenance staff, plumbers and engineers, and those in administrative and clerical roles.
This comes as a result of NHS England demanding that spending on support functions in NHS trusts must return to April 2022 levels by next November.
Before a picket outside the hospital, Unite’s local senior representative, Craig Jamie son, who is one of those whose job is at risk, said: “Already, many of my colleagues work unpaid overtime, and stress and mental health problems are major reasons why staff go off sick. If these cuts are pushed through, I only see that getting worse.”
This comes at a time when the city is booming, with an expected 18 per cent in local population growth by 2041, which is not a good time to make cut of nearly five per cent of the NHS workforce.
This was backed up by Re gional Officer Richard Gates, who pointed out that: “These cuts go completely against the grain of the government’s commitment to invest in the NHS. Not only is it devastating news for those who will also for those left who will no doubt be expected to pick up this extra work, at a time when they are already maxed out.” The union also points out that earlier similar across the board cuts to integrated care systems were found recently to have not had an adequate impact assessment. This forced over stretched workers having to take on more work and clinical services will have more of their time taken up by doing administrative and clerical tasks.
At Doncaster’s Cheswold Park Hospital, for mental health patients, workers are fighting against a “two tier workforce”. Late last year some workers, employed by private health provider Riverside, were transferred to the NHS. South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust refuses, however, to bring the transferred workers up to NHS conditions, which is of course the reason why unions make such demands for in-house employment.
This was brought into sharp focus by the case of a woman who, because she was denied sick pay, had to return to work to avoid financial hardship against doctor’s advice after suffering miscarriage complications due to being treated as a second-class employee.
This is just one consequence of the Trust refusing to upgrade the medical and non-medical workers from the bare legal minimum contracts. This affects not just the transferred workers but new employees and those moving from other parts of the trust.
The 170 affected workers have launched a collective grievance against the Trust, which refuses to give them NHS contracts. The Trust is offering only the possibility of updating the contracts in the distant future. Unite accuses the Trust of trying to take advantage of the contract disparities to make redundancies of long-serving, dedicated staff cheaply.
The union’s regional officer Chris Rawlinson said: “The trust’s behaviour to wards these workers is to tally immoral. There is no excuse for treating them as second-class employees and trying to deny long serving and dedicated staff fair redundancy packages. Unite will not allow the trust to kick this issue into the long grass – we will back these workers every step of the way.”
In Gloucestershire, phlebotomists, who conduct blood-tests, are continuing with a two-month long strike to secure regrading. They are paid at band 2 of the NHS’s Agenda for Change pay scale but their skills and training merit being on band 3. The issue was first raised last year, but after a total lack of response from Management, the phlebotomists took matters into their own hands. At the time only one was a Unison member, but now every single phlebotomist has joined the union to reinforce the demand for regrading and up to six years of back-pay to correct historic underpayment for the work they have done.
Even two managers are taking part. Carolyn Hay hurst, the local Unison rep, said “we won’t tolerate being overlooked and underpaid anymore”, adding: “We care deeply for patients who aren’t getting the care they deserve. Our colleagues across the hospital are under pressure to cover extra work during busy shifts and staff at local GP surgeries who can no longer send people to us for blood tests.” She went on to condemn the fact that “The trust is wasting public money by forcing nurses, who make £4 per hour more than us, to cover our absence, putting them in a difficult position as they lack our level of training. Meanwhile the cost of living continues to rise. Why should the lowest-paid NHS staff be treated with such disregard?”
Unison’s South West regional organiser, Chris Roche, deplored the fact that: “Trust senior managers have desperately tried to stop a job evaluation panel from reviewing the phlebotomists’ pay, but the game is up – it’s time they put things right. These phlebotomists are standing united for the principle of fair pay for all NHS staff, and they’ll keep fighting until they secure the recognition and wages they deserve.”
Workers at the Derbyshire Support and Facilities Services (DSFS) are now in the fray – out opposing the sudden de-recognition of Unite as from 12th June.
According to Unite this was the union’s punishment for a successful campaign by it and Unison to retain pay parity with the NHS for DSFS workers when the firm broke with the NHS pay levels and attempted to impose a smaller pay rise.
Across Offa’s Dyke unions are not over the moon about the 3.6 per cent because it is below the rate of inflation. Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham pointed out that: “NHS workers, who were on the frontline during the pandemic, are still suffering from historic pay cuts in real terms over the last 15 years and are contending with a worsening cost-of-living crisis. If the government is ever going to resolve the NHS crisis it will need to stop kicking the can down the road. It needs to get Unite and the other NHS unions round the negotiating table, face to face and start making serious inroads on pay and other issues that are crippling our NHS.”
Unite has, along with most other major health unions, re fused to take part in the current Pay Review Board which they say is not fit for purpose in dealing with the challenges of low pay that it insists must be resolved through direct negotiations with the government.