On the eve of UNISON’s annual health conference – which opens in Liverpool today (Monday), head of health Christina McAnea has warned that withdrawing unsocial hours payments from health workers would lead to mass unrest and damage already strained industrial relations.
The government’s plans to look at opening some NHS services seven days a week has already been heavily criticised by doctors and health unions.
In addition, options put forward earlier this year to cut out-of hours payments for NHS staff in England have caused widespread concern amongst health workers.
As a result, unsocial hours payments promise to be a hot topic at the union’s annual health conference. UNISON members working in the NHS from around the UK will debate motions calling for an industrial ballot if unsocial hours payments are cut.
UNISON head of health Christina McAnea said: “Five years of bitter experience has left health staff fearing the worst. We are warning any incoming government that any move to a seven-day NHS must not cost staff a penny.
“Staff want to work with their employers to improve and extend NHS services if this is based on patients’ needs, but not if it is driven by another cost-cutting exercise.
“The government’s attacks on NHS workers’ living standards know no end. Ministers are now sneakily trying to take away the cash that nurses and other health workers get by working unsocial hours – money that many NHS staff have increasingly come to rely upon.
“Health workers sacrifice their weekends and nights to care for the sick and vulnerable, and it is only fair that they are rewarded for this extra effort. Many do these hours not by choice but because after five years and pay freezes and their wages being held down they need the money.
“If refusing to give all NHS workers a one per cent pay rise wasn’t bad enough, Conservatives are now expecting staff to do much more for much less. This is truly unfair. If staff are no longer able to earn more by working when most of us are either asleep or enjoying leisure time with family and friends, they will simply vote with their feet and stop offering to work at nights and weekends.
“We also know almost three quarters of staff would not work these hours. Then the cost in agency staff to replace them will be huge.
“It is naïve of the Secretary of State to think that health workers will just sit back and allow yet another attack on their living standards. Health workers will not shy away from picket lines if their earnings are threatened.”
Last year, an Income Data Services report for the NHS unions showed that a third of NHS workers rely on unsocial hours payments to supplement their incomes. And almost three-quarters (71 per cent) said they would not work at nights or weekends if unsocial hours rates were cut.
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