1%? Up yours! – We need health workers’ and patients’ power! – Invitation for a meeting, March 11

[hitmouse]

A few threads this could go in, but it might as well have its own:

1%? Up yours! We need health workers’ and patients’ power! Meeting, March 2021 - Angry Workers

Things are heating up - the 1% pay increase insult dished out by the government led to a lot of angry discussions in tea rooms and on ward floors. This is a proposal to other comrades and workers’ militants in the health sector to exchange their experiences and discuss how to support both...

www.angryworkers.org

The full thing is very long because the authors are apparently incapable of writing anything short, but here's some important bits:

Things are heating up – the 1% pay increase insult dished out by the government led to a lot of angry discussions in tea rooms and on ward floors. This is a proposal to other comrades and workers’ militants in the health sector to exchange their experiences and discuss how to support both self-organised and effective struggle and the expansion of workers’ and patients’ control... If you think similarly, please get in touch. We will have an online meeting on the 11th of March 2021.


We don’t need to re-invent the wheel, instead we want to create a basic forum of militant health workers to facilitate the following:

• the exchange of experience concerning concrete conditions and concessions won on a departmental or Trust/company level;
• the exchange of reports about the ongoing disputes that look behind the official union announcements;
• the circulation of relevant international news about struggles in the sector, focusing on first-hand reports and direct correspondence that go deeper than the official media;
• the exchange of material that we use in our local situation, official union branch material or independent leaflets and newsletters;
• the creation of leaflets with relevant reports that can be used for local distribution amongst colleagues;
• the discussion about the wider significance of struggles in the health sector for the struggle against the current social order and for a classless society.

This is not meant as an alternative to existing campaigns or organisations, but as a forum of reflection and exchange of militant workers in the sector. If you are interested, please get in touch.


angryworkersworld@gmail.com

 

[Shechemite]

Looks good! (The meeting not the 1% pay rise)

 

[StoneRoad]

Sending a snotty, complaining letter to my (useless) MP.
Looking for something local to show support ...

 

[Shechemite]

Also, would need to look to include social care staff. Not only because they are appallingly paid, but also for health care workers to win/maintain public support you can’t just make it about nurses/doctors pay, but needs to connect with political/moral issues.

Apart from age, the group that’s been doing the most dying during the pandemic has been people with learning disability and/or Down’s syndrome, and the biggest factor in their deaths has been living in congregate care settings (ie institutions). Discrimination from the medical profession has also been a factor.

One of the worst failings of our society post-1945 has been the failure to De-institutionalise and desegregate disabled people (especially PWLD). This has resulted in the 60,000+ deaths of disabled people over the last year.

for deinstitutionalisation to happen, we need (amongst other things) a much, much bigger social care sector, with staff that are paid properly and who are motivated to help fulfill the historic task of the liberation of disabled people from institutions

 

[Shechemite]

And cleaners. Hands down the best people in all of the health and social care workforce

 

[Shechemite]

Any chance of putting the link for the meeting up here (or via PM) for those of us with a cautious disposition?

 

[Pickman's model]

And cleaners. Hands down the best people in all of the health and social care workforce

not to mention the nhs librarians, whose important role in providing support to frontline staff is often passed over

 

[LDC]

not to mention the nhs librarians, whose important role in providing support to frontline staff is often passed over

The library staff at the last hospital I worked at were just brilliant. They'd do literature searches, order in anything, etc., they were really, really helpful. I think in part they were just pleased to see anyone though as it was a small and underused (although well stocked) resource.

 

[Shechemite]

not to mention the nhs librarians, whose important role in providing support to frontline staff is often passed over

Porters too

 

[LDC]

Porters too

Yeah, I'm annoyed at the media coverage of the NHS generally, and specifically over this pay rise, they only seem to talk about nurses and doctors, it's like the NHS from the 1960s and there's no acknowledgement of all the other jobs and skills that keep the whole thing going. Admin staff for example, especially ward clerks, keep the whole organisation running.

 

[Edie]

Porters too

And physios, OTs, ODPs, pharmacists, pharm techs, ragiographers, receptionists, secretaries, ward clerks, security etc etc

 

[Edie]

Haha snap LynnDoyleCooper

 

[dessiato]

But the Brexiters said there was 350 million a week that could be spent on the NHS, didn’t they?

The NHS deserves a substantial pay rise. One wonders just how many people are alive today entirely due to their amazing dedication this last year. As other’s have said, everyone, every single one of them, doctors, nurses, midwives, cleaners, catering staff, deserves a pay rise for what they’ve done.

 

[Edie]

I am absolutely furious about this 1% it is absolute fucking insult to people who are still leaving work with grooves in their faces from the PPE. Who quite literally put their lives on the line, and I DO NOT FORGET how fucking scary those night shifts were last April. I do not forget standing at the plastic tape sealed door of the hot ward with the plastic on, knowing the virus was in there, knowing that staff were dying, knowing I had no choice but to go in.

It’s easy now to forget just how bloody scary it was last April. That adrenaline that carried us all through. I remember it all very well and 1% is an absolute joke. I’m definitely not a militant though.

 

[chilango]

The money's there.

This a choice.

A choice by a Government that a) wants to do this and b) thinks its strong enough to get away with it.

 

[Edie]

Plus let’s not forget, we’ve had leave cancelled, we’ve been redeployed, we’ve been asked to do tasks or work in areas way out of our comfort zones or job descriptions, we’ve worked late, we’ve worked bank shifts, and we’ve put our family at risk. I remember stripping off my scrubs on the patio and straight into the washer then straight into the shower, telling the kids not to touch me, every day for months.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I’m definitely not a militant though.

Edie Why not? If you are furious why not be passionate and militant about that? The alternative is putting up with it isn't it?

 

[Treacle Toes]

Channelling Nadine fucking Dorries.

 

[Treacle Toes]

 

[LDC]

Would you potentially strike over this Edie ? Has there been any talk of that where you work?

 

[Edie]

Would you potentially strike over this Edie ? Has there been any talk of that where you work?

Yes to both

 

[Edie]

Edit: I don’t have the strength rn

 

[elbows]

They are still fucking everyone over with the mask guidance too:

Covid: Nurses condemn 'fundamentally flawed' PPE rules

The existing recommendations are based on out-of-date evidence, the Royal College of Nursing says.

www.bbc.co.uk

That guidance was deeply inappropriate when it was first put in place too, it was just done because of supply issues and then badly dressed as being to do with the science of the virus. There is much less room these days to pretend aerosols arent a big deal, hence that articles emphasis on current evidence, but government etc have just tried to carry on as if the lies on this front are not more blatant now than they were at the start.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Edit: I don’t have the strength rn

Sending love Edie. ❤

 

[Edie]

Sending love Edie. ❤

I meant for an argument about the futility of industrial action, but I’ll take that

 

[Treacle Toes]

I meant for an argument about the futility of industrial action, but I’ll take that

I got that. x

 

[elbows]

Johnson is happy to roll out the same old bullshit.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended plans to give some NHS staff in England a 1% pay rise, amid warnings that "undervalued" nurses could quit.

The government is giving workers "as much as we can" in the "tough times" of the Covid pandemic, Mr Johnson said.

NHS 1% pay rise is 'as much as we can give' - Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson defends his pay rise proposals after a warning nurses may quit for feeling undervalued.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

Speaking of Johnson, this was the Daily Stars front page on Saturday.

 

[MickiQ]

Channelling Nadine fucking Dorries.

That's clearly meant to be satire but it's not as funny as she thinks it is

 

[Treacle Toes]

That's clearly meant to be satire but it's not as funny as she thinks it is

I think that's the point. It's supposed to make people cringe/squirm and be angry.