NHS and health

Over two hundred outsourced workers who are members of the GMB at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, South London struck for 48 hours on 24-26 November. On the 24th the workers, who are employed by Dutch multinational ISS as cleaners, security, ward hostesses, caterers, on the switchboard and as porters, struck alongside directly employed NHS staff striking for their national pay dispute. The outsourced GMB members are looking to level up to the same terms and conditions as directly employed NHS workers — on basic pay rates, unsocial, weekend and bank holiday hours rates, sick pay and other...

Health workers struck for a second 4-hour block on Monday 24 November. Although the strike may not be the most militant on record, there is some evidence that the NHS pay dispute is gaining momentum and the unions are turning up new activists. Despite painfully timid leadership, the dispute has become a rallying point for health workers concerned about NHS cuts and privatisation. If it is going to grow and be successful then those new activists need to turn outwards and convince the large numbers of strikebreakers to join us and create a renewed union movement. Many healthworkers crossed...

Labour MP Clive Efford’s Bill on the NHS got through its second reading in Parliament on 21 November with 241 votes in favour and just 18 against. It was a good though unexpected result, though nothing for the government to get worried about. There’s not enough time for the Bill to go too far before the general election next May. The Bill gives an opportunity to have discussion and debate about what changes are needed to restore the NHS; and maybe to get a sneak preview of what Labour has in mind for the NHS. The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign called a rally outside Parliament to welcome the...

Health unions will stage a further four hour strike on 24 November in their ongoing pay dispute. If we do not win a decent pay settlement and build a union movement capable of defending our already much degraded terms and conditions, then we will have helped speed on the end of the NHS as a free state-of-the art health service. Since 2010 the NHS has been starved of £20 billion. By 2020 the gap between funding and necessary expenditure will be around £50 billion. But the current strategy of the unions is risible. So far the campaign has involved a four hour strike, four days of not doing...

Tory defector Douglas Carswell became UKIP’s first elected MP on 9 October, and another Tory defector, Mark Reckless, may win on 20 November in Rochester and Strood. We examine UKIP’s manifesto. UKIP: “Migrants are a drain on UK resources, including benefits and NHS” Solidarity: Researchers at University College London report that European migrants pay out far more in taxes than they receive in state benefits, a net contribution of £20 billion between 2000 and 2011. This is true for migrants from the “new” EU members such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as well as the “old” EU countries. Of 1...

After months of speculation and vague promises Labour's Clive Efford MP has published his NHS (Amended Duties and Powers) Private Members Bill. Was it worth waiting for? With the political limits of the Labour Party and the practical limits of what a Private Members Bill can achieve it was never going to repeal the 2012 Health and Social Care Act , nor reverse the cuts and privatisation of the NHS. But the Bill does tackle some of the worst bits of the Health and Social Care Act. Backed by the Labour leadership and supported by Unite, Unison and the GMB leaders, it’s an attempt to show Labour...

Health unions have announced a further four hour strike on 24 November in their ongoing pay dispute. Since 2010 the NHS has been starved of £20 billion. By 2020 the gap between funding and necessary expenditure will be around £50 billion. Last month the new Chief Executive of the NHS Simon Stevens made a spurious claim that with an extra £8 billion investment he could redesign the service and make £22 billion savings by 2020. If we do not win a decent pay settlement and build a union movement capable of defending our already much degraded terms and conditions, then we will have helped speed on...

If workers in the NHS (the area I work in) were able to get more insight into how we all respond to “authority” they would be better able to rely on their own skills and knowledge and be more assertive about resisting the current reforms. My argument (which could be extended to other workers) is that in order to do this it is vital we extend Marx’s micro analysis of the relationship between the worker and the capitalist in the light of advances in psychological theories and therapies. The nature of politics requires developing a forcefulness in response to the power of the capitalist system...

On 8 October, outsourced workers – cleaners, caterers, switchboard workers, seamstresses, porters and others – employed by ISS at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, South London, struck for the same pay and conditions as directly employed workers. To find out more about the dispute, visit their page on the GMB Southern region website . To make a donation to their strike fund, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Messages of solidarity and requests for more info to nadine.houghton@gmb.org.uk The workers are in talks with management and will be deciding their next course of action soon...

Tube cleaners employed by contractor ISS have returned to work, after a months-long lock out. Workers were locked out of work without pay for refusing to use biometric fingerprinting machines. ISS, which has a history of using immigration law against its mainly-migrant workforce, had openly admitted that the data collected would be shared with the UK Border Agency. The locked-out cleaners have been given a number of options, including returning to work on alternative contracts without biometric fingerprinting. Tubeworker called for a cleaners’ strike, voted for by ISS RMT members, to be called...