The health workers' section of the public service workers' union Unison has its conference in April. The Unison Health Service Group Exec met on 26 March, and a very strong minority opposed the top union officials' line that the union should accept a multi-year deal at whatever the official Pay Review Body proposes.
The essence of the debate is whether or not to fight the Government's plan to impose three-year formulas cutting real wages across the public sector.
Unison Health Service Group Exec member Nick Holden reports:
"The main dispute was over motions 17, 18 and 19, and the amendments to those motions. Almost certainly these will see the most contentious debate at the conference, too, and some of the votes at the SGE were very close.
"Mike Jackson, senior national officer, argued that the SGE should oppose all the amendments, and motions 18 and 19, and support only motion 17 unamended. Motion 17 would commit the union to “campaign for governments to honour all future recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body” and applauds “the decisions of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to honour the PRB recommendations in full” in 2007, even though we said at the time that the PRB recommendations were inadequate...
The East Midlands' motion, motion 18, and the one from Leicestershire Health, motion 19, instead say that we should only accept the PRB recommendation if it meets our objectives to eliminate low pay in the NHS and see real terms pay increases for NHS staff. If the PRB recommendation fails that test, our motions say that we should demand the government vary the recommendation so that our objectives are acheived.
Mike Jackson spoke against our motions, claiming that they would allow the government to vary the recommendation downwards and thus reducing the value of the pay offer!
The debate around the amendments centred on the issue of whether we would accept a multiyear pay deal. Similar amendments had been submitted by the Admin and Clerical Sector and Manchester Community and Mental Health branch to all three motions, rejecting any multi-year pay deal “unless there is a guarantee of a substantial increase above the underlying rate of inflation”...
Mike Jackson argued that a multi-year pay deal might be the only way we could continue the talks around terms and conditions which had begun as part of last year's pay settlement. The argument seemed to be that a below-inflation pay deal might be price we have to pay in order to win the abolition of band 1, or a reduction in the working week.
On a vote of 15-14 the SGE agreed with the officers' recommendation to oppose the amendment from the Admin and Clerical Sector. I voted to support both this amendment and the one from Manchester, but the SGE voted 18-13 to oppose that one. The SGE also agreed with the officers' recommendation to support motion 17, and oppose 18 and 19, and, once again, I was in the minority in all three votes".