NHS: reballot, unite, organise

To win, NHS workers need escalation, and that also means pushing for re-ballots, especially in trusts where Unison missed the thresholds.

Currently RCN strikes are being undermined where Unison members have been instructed by their branches to cross picket lines. We have advocated support for Unison members who decide not to cross RCN picket lines. Thousands of Unison members have left their union and joined the RCN because they want to strike.

Beyond that, the best way to achieve solid action in a workplace is for all the unions to win legal mandates and strike together. Winning second ballots shouldn’t be taken for granted, but with improved membership data and focused resources it is possible in many more places. RCN members should help Unison branches in their workplaces with organising for ballots, even if their leadership guard against it. This is no time for petty competition between unions.

In Scotland, after RCN members rejected the latest pay offer, the union have again paused strikes for negotiations. The Scottish government has proposed negotiations on the basis of accelerated talks for 2023-24, three additional months of 2023-24 pay, and a review of Agenda for Change (A4C, the NHS pay scheme) to “ensure nursing is rewarded properly”. The Scottish government have agreed to support extension of the strike-ballot mandates to allow for negotiations, but still the pause a tactical misstep by the RCN leadership. Negotiations should be conducted under pressure of an active, mobilised membership, in control of the dispute.

The review of A4C listed in these terms suggests that the RCN have been pushing for a “nurses’” solution. Such sectional approaches will not solve the crisis that lies at the heart of this dispute. Many workers have organised for re-banding within A4C over the years, but any solution that breaks up the pay scales into different sections for different groups of workers would be a very different and negative step, playing into the Tory government’s agenda. A united demand for fully funded pay increases across the A4C scales is what all unions should be fighting for.

The networks linking NHS workers, including NHS Workers Say No and Nurses United, are currently not much more than Facebook and Whatsapp discussion forums and have played no role in co-ordinating rank and file input into the dispute, but there are moves to bring together cross-union organisation at a national level.

Working to encourage re-ballots, co-ordinating motions into local union branches, organising for national union conferences, even pushing for an extraordinary RCN conference over strategy, are all actions that could make a huge difference to members having a say about the progress of the dispute and make the difference to winning. Building a solid network out of the dispute would in itself be a massive gain for the future.