Frontline health workers vote ‘yes’ to strike action at sites across Lancashire
Health workers employed by private company OCS at Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Trust have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking strike action, says UNISON today (Friday).
The 50 staff, including porters, caterers and cleaners, work for the healthcare facilities firm at eight NHS sites across Lancashire. They are asking for the same sick pay and annual holiday as staff directly employed by the NHS.
The workers are employed at hospitals, mental health units and clinics in Blackburn, Blackpool, Ormskirk and Preston and are expected to strike for 72 hours from Wednesday 29 June to Friday 1 July.
Until April this year,...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 17, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Anthony Barnes Tags: News Press release agenda for change OCS private contractors Source Type: news
University of Leeds members prepare to strike again
The University of Leeds branch is taking further strike action over the 2021-22 pay round, next week, on 20-24 June.
Members have lost 20% of their pay against inflation over 12 years. They have used the pay calculator to show just how many thousands of pounds staff are being cheated in their pay.
The union argues that staff are working all November and December “for free” against what they would have been earning had pay kept pace with inflation over that period.
The sector as a whole grew its surpluses by £2.2bn over the last two years and benefited to the tune of £119m from the furlough scheme – figures from The...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Amanda Kendal Tags: Article News higher education Source Type: news
‘Democracy and peace are equal to bread and water’: Turkish trade unionists address conference
Mehmet Bozgeyik, president of KESK, Turkish Confederation of Public Service Workers, delivered a passionate speech to UNISON’s national delegate conference this morning.
Addressing the conference in Turkish, with translation from a colleague, he acknowledged that this was the first time he had been able to travel abroad in six years due to a travel ban imposed on the trade union activists.
Hundreds of delegates raised ‘Free Gonul’ signs in solidarity with Gonul Erden, the Turkish Trade union leader currently imprisoned in the country. UNISON attended the first day of her trial earlier this year and general secretary ...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: News 2022 National Delegate Conference Source Type: news
Wealth inequality in the UK is ‘ entrenched ’ under the Tories
Delegates at UNISON’s national conference have torn apart the UK government’s claims to be ‘levelling up’ the country.
During a busy session yesterday afternoon, one delegate after another questioned the Tories’ plans, inclinations and ability to deliver equality.
While expressing “deep scepticism and anger” at the government’s claim to be levelling up the country, the motion cited recent research that shows:
Funding for levelling up pales in comparison to what has been lost during the austerity years;
For every job created in the North, just under three were created in London and the Greater South Eas...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Demetrios Matheou Tags: Article 2022 National Delegate Conference cost of living equalities Source Type: news
UNISON commits to campaign for a national care service
On the second day of UNISON’s national delegate conference, the union unanimously voted through a motion to campaign for a national care service.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on the social care sector and care workers. Tens of thousands of elderly and disabled people have died from COVID-19 in care homes and other care settings across the UK since March 2020, and the death rate among care workers has been particularly high.
UNISON believes that the UK needs a national care service that brings about consistent standards of care for the elderly and disabled, and consistent terms and conditions for the work...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: News 2022 National Delegate Conference adult social care Source Type: news
‘ Now is the time for investment, not cuts ’
UNISON delegates yesterday turned the focus of the cost of living crisis squarely towards the solution – a “realistic windfall tax” on energy companies and greater taxation on the country’s wealthiest people.
With inflation at its highest level for 30 years, a composite motion identified the combined effect on members’ lives of a cost of living that was ‘going through the roof’ and the decade-long stagnation in public sector pay.
The motion also noted the disproportionate impact of inflation on the low paid, who have to spend a greater proportion of their income on essentials such as food and energy b...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Demetrios Matheou Tags: News 2022 National Delegate Conference cost of living fair pay Source Type: news
‘This union is a green union’: UNISON commits to decarbonise public services
Today, UNISON unanimously passed a motion on climate change at the 2022 national delegate conference.
At COP26 in November 2021, UNISON launched a ground-breaking report on climate justice: Getting to Net Zero in Public Services: The Road to Decarbonisation.
The report asserts that getting public services to net-zero will need £140 billion of government funding by 2035. Without significant and immediate government funding, public services that are still reeling from a decade of austerity will struggle to decarbonise.
The motion includes measures for all branches to elect green representatives who will support the developm...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 16, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: Article News 2022 National Delegate Conference COP26 green Source Type: news
Ed Miliband: ‘ We ’ ve got to raise our ambitions on climate change ’
Ed Miliband told delegates at UNISON’s Energy conference in Brighton this week that the change to net-zero carbon emissions is “not about putting a green coat of paint on an unfair, unequal economy, but about the fundamental transfer of wealth power and income to working people and their families”.
Outlining Labour’s energy policy if the party gains power at the next election, he asked: “Are we really going to go from a high-carbon unjust, unfair, unequal country to a zero-carbon unjust, unfair, unequal country? No.”
Opening his speech, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero told ...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 15, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Martin Cullen Tags: Article News 2022 Energy Service Group Conference Source Type: news
UNISON at 30 – delegates pass first motion at NDC in Brighton
Debate kicked off on Tuesday morning at UNISON’s national delegate conference with UNISON at 30, a motion calling on the NEC to produce a statistical report and an action plan to improve the number of women participating at all levels in UNISON.
Moving, Miriam Mafemba from Newcastle Hospital branch paid tribute to the “many fantastic women across my region who have been and continue to be an inspiration to me and others”.
Heralding their inspiration as the reason she stopped being a “paper member” and got active, which led her to be elected as a new Labour councillor in Newcastle, she said: “Who knew I would be...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 15, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Simon Jackson Tags: Article News 2022 National Delegate Conference Source Type: news
Paul Holmes opens national delegate conference with call to arms
UNISON president Paul Holmes opened UNISON’s first in-person national delegate conference in three years, in Brighton today, by voicing the union’s anger at the way the UK government – “some kind of upper-class Wetherspoons” – is running the country.
The inflation rate in the UK for the bottom 10% of earners has hit 14%, he said, before talking about two women in Wakefield who had recently been interviewed by the BBC, in light of the imminent by-election in their city.
One said that she would run out of money for electricity by 9 o’clock in the morning, the other that she could not afford to eat.
“It&...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 14, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Demetrios Matheou Tags: News 2022 National Delegate Conference Source Type: news
UNISON host cost of living summit
Leaders from across the charity sector have joined Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, and UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea for a roundtable on the cost of living crisis.
The event, at UNISON Centre on Friday 10 June, aimed to bring together the various strands of the cost of living crisis and hear views from key stakeholders – to inform policy development and explore opportunities for collective action.
Ms McAnea opened the session, outlining UNISON’s particular concerns, and introducing the various themes. The roundtable was based around four questions:
What further long-term measures are needed to protec...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 14, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Simon Jackson Tags: Article News cost of living UNISON Labour Link Source Type: news
Delegates agree: ‘ If our pay doesn ’t rise, we will ’
This morning, UNISON local government conference unanimously voted to back a motion to campaign for pay rises for workers delivering outsourced services, including those in social care, school meals and refuse collection.
Local authority budget cuts have heavily affected the salaries of workers employed by private contractors who are delivering local government outsourced services.
Introducing the motion, UNISON chair of the private contractors national forum Catharyn Richardson said: “If our pay doesn’t rise, we will”.
UNISON has long campaigned for pay awards in private contractors to match those in the private sec...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 13, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: Article 2022 local government conference 2022 Local Government Service Group Conference Source Type: news
LG conference: fighting climate change and misogyny
Chaired by UNISON vice president Andrea Egan, the first afternoon of this year’s local government conference saw the union pass a three-part composite motion on climate change in local government, alongside one on ending misogyny.
Climate change
Councils are key to meeting climate change emission targets: they are directly responsible for between 2% and 5% of their local area’s emissions and play a significant role in emissions reduction due to their powers over housing, planning, transport, waste and other issues.
91% of councils have adopted at least one net-zero commitment, and 38% of single and upper tier autho...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 13, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: News 2022 local government conference violence against women Source Type: news
Ministers are provoking a fight with unions to serve their own ends
Responding to proposed legal changes to allow agency workers to fill in for striking staff, UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said today (Sunday): “The government’s focus should be on a plan to help the country through the cost-of-living crisis, not engineering a distracting spat with unions.
“Using agency workers isn’t safe and only serves to sour relations between employers and their employees.
“The Prime Minister should give health, care, council, school and police staff a pay rise that helps them weather surging prices, invigorates local communities and protects essential services...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 12, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Garfield Myrie Tags: health News Press release Christina McAnea cost of living Source Type: news
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 pl...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - June 9, 2022 Category: Food Science Authors: Janey Starling Tags: Article News health health workers hospital insourcing private contractors Source Type: news
