UNISON wins major insourcing battle in Lanarkshire

UNISON has won a major insourcing victory in Scotland, after NHS Lanarkshire announced that it will take over the contract for cleaning, catering, portering and security services at University Hospital Wishaw. The jobs of 400 workers – many held by traditionally low-paid, part-time women workers – will transfer from private contractor Serco to NHS Lanarkshire later this year. There will be no job losses. The Lanarkshire health branch of UNISON has been running a ‘PFI bleeds the NHS dry’ campaign to end profit-motivated private contracts providing public services at NHS hospitals. A similar contract is in place at University Hospital Hairmyres in East Kilbride, which is currently held by ISS. The campaign to transfer that contract to the NHS continues. Convener of UNISON Scotland Lilian Macer said: “This is a major success in the union’s campaign to end all outsourcing of NHS contracts, putting an end to a two-tier workforce at the Wishaw hospital. “It will be better for the workers, their future pensions, the community, the NHS and the local economy. Workers will now have equal terms to their NHS colleagues and there will be no job losses.” Ms Macer said that the union has a long-standing policy of seeking to return service provision to the direct control to NHS Lanarkshire at both Wishaw and Hairmyres hospitals and to remove the private sector contractors Serco at Wishaw and ISS at Hairmyres. “Through our campaign we lobbied NHS Lanarksh...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: Article News health health workers hospital insourcing private contractors Source Type: news