“They should treat us equally because we are all equal,” says Maria, an NHS domestic worker who has worked at Whipps Cross Hospital in London for the past 18 years. Like most of her fellow NHS workers, Maria, who works in patient-facing roles, has been on the front line of the pandemic. — designated key worker. Despite weekly ‘applause for carers’ and parliamentary awards, the recognition given to workers like Maria since the first lockdown has been largely mundane. Currently, Maria and her colleagues are being denied one of the only tangible rewards available to these workers: the COVID-19 compensation bonus.
Covid Reward bonuses have been promised to NHS staff as part of the 2022/2023 Pay Change Agenda Deal, with staff in the lowest pay bands receiving a £1,655 bonus in recognition of their back-breaking work during the coronavirus pandemic. You will receive a lump sum payment. Pandemic. However, due to professional issues, the predominantly female immigrant population at Barts Health Trust in London (which includes St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Royal London Hospital, Mile End Hospital, Whipps Cross Hospital and Newham Hospital) A group of domestic workers did not receive a bonus. .
Workers, members of Unite the Union, are on strike to demand their values. Initially contracted out to Serco, a private company, these employees were brought back into the company directly as employees upon retirement. Campaign success with Unite And for the most part, workers are satisfied. “Things are better for us and for our patients,” said Mirella, who has worked as a domestic worker at St. Bart’s Hospital for more than 10 years. tribune. “The quality of equipment and materials has improved, as have wages. Things that were previously frozen have gone up in price, but our argument is that we have been excluded from the Covid Reward, unrecognized and undervalued. That’s the thing.”
Around 1,800 contract workers will be moved from one contract to another, with Unite agreeing to a “phased transfer” starting with security staff and receptionists in November 2022. The new contract officially began on May 1, 2023. Employees such as porters, catering staff and cleaners have officially returned. This means that due to technical issues, those who joined the contract after the end of the pay year (31st March) are no longer eligible to receive a bonus, while colleagues are not eligible to receive a bonus. did. Those who transferred before the deadline.
“We do not accept this at all because our members are currently directly employed by the NHS and have been working since May 1.” Len Hockey, senior trade union representative and key organizer In the midst of controversy, he says: tribune. “And they should be paid, given that this bonus recognizes the contributions they made in the midst of the pandemic, right in 2020 and 2021.”
He said workers feel disenfranchised by other co-workers. Maria agrees. “This is not how we should be treated.”
Responsible for keeping the workplace clean and tidy, providing meals and catering for patients and staff, and making sure things run smoothly, domestic workers often don’t get much attention in the workplace. This can be seen in the conversation surrounding the railway strike, often overshadowed by complaints that a train driver’s wages exceed his £50,000. The struggle of domestic workers, who are among the lowest paid and often outsourced. They earn far less than the real living wage. The outsourcing of certain groups of workers has created a two-tier workforce, with workers directly employed by the NHS often better pay or conditions than my contracted colleagues. NHS temporary and outsourced workers were initially refused Covid-19 payments, but a campaign later called on the government to do so. to correct the decision.
For Ellen, who has worked at St. Bart’s Hospital for 13 years, it feels like a “slap in the face” that she and her colleagues didn’t receive a bonus. “If it wasn’t for us, I don’t know how the NHS would have survived.” [the pandemic]Because we have kept the hospital afloat,” she said. tribune. It also doesn’t take into account the trauma experienced by hospital staff. “We saw patients dying, we saw patients in their beds, and we had to go to the wards to clean and bring food,” Ellen continues. “And obviously, we lost family members, we lost close friends and colleagues. It was very, very stressful.”
Mirela remembers this moment vividly. “It was very difficult,” she says. “Our hospitals were full of COVID-19, we had to deep clean everything all the time, we were understaffed and in chaos… We were putting lives at risk. ”
All this is compounded by the fact that NHS workers have faced real pay cuts for years, and even more so since the pandemic, when inflation has reached new highs. Domestic workers like Maria, Mirella, Len and Ellen are in the lowest paid bracket of the NHS, earning around £22,300 a year. “It’s very difficult. We are on the bottom of the pay scale,” says Mirela. “Everyone is facing a cost of living crisis, inflation has been rising here for two years, and there are many things we can’t afford. Rent is high in London and transport costs are high.” [to work] Prices are high, and so is food. we can’t think of anything else. ” Maria says she doesn’t earn enough to cover her expenses unless she works extra shifts.
Unite said Barts workers have been on strike since September, including during their normal working days of Christmas and Boxing Day, but are also facing staff shortages, threatening the welfare of staff and patients. That’s what it means. “In our view, certain areas of the hospital and certain wards do not have sufficient levels of resources,” Hockey explains. “Overworked conditions are impacting on staff in these areas, impacting on their health and wellbeing and, as a result, patient care.”
“From the moment I get to work at 7 o’clock, I’m always on the move,” Ellen says. Morning staff often have to complete all unfinished tasks from the night before before starting the day’s work. “This means breakfast is sometimes late, or we run out of spoons or bowls or certain things that patients need,” she continues. “Some staff come to work early to avoid the consequences, but they are not paid overtime for that.”
A sense of structural inequality pervades the conflict, given that the striking workers are primarily women and migrant workers. Outsourced workers, who are overwhelmingly black and Asian, are some of the lowest paid workers in the country. Recent internal procurement victories mean they are now entitled to statutory sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal that they were previously denied, but the fight for pay justice continues. “We’re always left behind and have to go on strike to get recognition, and that shouldn’t happen,” Ellen says.
Discrepancies in bonus payments are not limited to the NHS. The RMT union last year accused Eurostar of structural racism after a group of mainly black outsourced workers were excluded from a €600 (£512) bonus. The erroneous exclusion of similar groups of workers from coronavirus incentives is a sign of the growing structural inequities built into the two-tier hospital system. “It’s totally unfair,” Hockey said.
While picket line workers step in and demand “respect”; [they] “But it is clear that strikes alone will not be enough to stop the most exploited workers from paying the price for poor policies.” Now more than ever, we need Single status of worker A single employment right for everyone except the purely self-employed. As Labor water down its commitment to these policies, trade unions must not only help workers regain their rights, but campaign to ensure they no longer have to.