UNISON to recommend pay deal - but only just!

Submitted by Anon on 19 October, 2004 - 4:32

By Nick Holden, special conference delegate

A UNISON special conference last week voted to recommend the proposed new pay system for the NHS, Agenda for Change (AfC), to the union's 450,000 health members in a postal ballot. The ballot opens this week, and follows a similar ballot in the specialist union for X-ray staff, the Society of Radiographers, which saw 83% vote no to the proposals.

Amicus is also balloting members, but without making a recommendation. The Royal College of Nursing accepted a draft of the proposals a year ago and has not consulted its membership on the final deal.

The UNISON conference ended with some dispute, as the President of the union, Pauline Grant, refused to put the proposals to a card vote, ruling that a show of hands was sufficient. Many activists argue that the vote was too close to call confidently, and make the further point that a vote with such major consequences should, in any case, have been recorded so that rank and file members could check their delegates' voting.

A recorded card vote would have shown just how divided the union is on the question, where the UNISON leadership wanted to be able to call the decision "overwhelming". The lack of precise figures helps them, but the President's decision to refuse a card vote is costing them support amongst activists who attended the conference. Ann Clay, Branch Secretary from City Hospitals, Sunderland, called the decision "a disgrace", and asked, "what are people trying to hide?"

Harry Seddon, from Norfolk and Norwich Hospital branch supported acceptance of Agenda for Change in the debate, but said later, "The vote
looked to be just in favour, but very, very close. Everyone around me was shocked at the way the vote was handled - all the activists I spoke to felt it was handled cynically at best, and a fix at worst. I think it risked devaluing our democracy for the sake of expediency and one decision on AfC on the day."

A number of branches are considering protests over the decision, and Pauline Grant may yet come to regret ignoring the demands for a recorded vote.

The debate itself covered little new ground. Supporters of the scheme argued that most UNISON members will gain improved pay, and that new agreements on partnership working will lead to better facilities being granted to unions in the workplace. Those against the deal pointed out that estimates of those likely to lose out vary wildly, and that the trialling of the scheme in twelve Early Implementer (EI) sites did not produce reliable or reassuring evidence. Two of the EI sites spoke against the deal in the debate. North East Ambulance Service UNISON shocked the conference when they revealed that their managers are refusing to pay staff who have done well out of the change on their new pay grades and are threatening redundancies if the union insist on the staff getting their pay rise. Meanwhile City of Sunderland Hospitals argued that their experience of large groups of administrative staff losing badly from Agenda for Change will be the future for many hospitals, and there are increasing suggestions that other EI sites might have adjusted the AfC process in order to avoid the same results. UNISON's national leadership insisted that the problems have mostly been tackled, and any further problems can be solved locally - such as in Scotland where negotiations with the Scottish Parliament have resulted in promises that Scottish NHS staff will not lose out from the implementation of Agenda for Change. This prompted critics of the deal to ask why the same commitment could not have been won for workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The fact remains however, that despite the lack of evidence supporting the leadership's assurances that everything in the AfC garden is rosy, the left in UNISON failed to persuade delegates that an alternative strategy was either necessary or possible. Harry Seddon again: "The fact is that the hall was full of principle and emotion, but we didn't get a convincing assessment of the power that could be brought to bear, or any programme for action. Our assessment of our branch, which I am proud to say does fight when necessary, was that there are simply too many likely to come out of it reasonably well for us to muster the necessary muscle to fight for anything better... It is entirely wrong to talk of kicking our negotiators up the bum - we must be able to demonstrate that we can provide the muscle necessary to support the negotiators if they reject the offer. If the muscle was there, not only would the government be worried, so would the negotiators!"

Some in the 'no' camp soft-pedalled their criticism of the deal, calling Agenda for Change "good, but not good enough".This created a false impression that the deal was mostly OK even if it didn't deliver all we wanted, and that the call for rejection was just typical 'left-wing posturing' rather than a serious and essential proposition. This tactic allowed the leadership to argue that 'good' was the best we could hope to get, and that voting no would amount to "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". It's harder to refute that argument if you've already accepted that the deal is a good one. Others (but not enough of us) argued for a stronger opposition to the deal, seeing the need for a clear 'reject' argument on the basis of all that's wrong with it - the longer working hours, the pay freezes, the introduction of performance-related pay and so on.

Attention will now shift to the ballot itself, which opens on October 14th. The result will be announced on November 8th, with Amicus announcing their result a few days later. By not making an official recommendation yet lobbying hard for the deal to be accepted, the Amicus leadership are now in a winning position - they can blame UNISON if the deal is accepted and then goes sour. Both unions however remain worried that the turn-out in the ballot might be low - when the decision was made to trial the scheme in the EI sites, less than a quarter of union members voted.

Ann Clay from Sunderland again: "I expect a yes vote, because some people do exactly what the Executive recommends, and many members don't have enough information so will allow themselves to be guided by those that do... Some people's attitude is, 'what's the point; its already been decided' but we are convincing them that it has not. This is no time for apathy."

Workers' Liberty supporters in the health service will be voting no in the ballots, and encouraging all of our colleagues to do the same. Not only will many staff face a pay freeze from the changes, over 200,000 also face the prospect of a longer working week. Fundamentally the proposals are about squeezing more, and more flexible, work out of the NHS workforce, and avoiding the possibility of future 'equal pay' claims winning back pay for low paid NHS employees. The unions claim that Agenda for Change represents 'harmonisation' of NHS pay and conditions, but the reality is that it is a levelling down, not a levelling up, and the unions should not be accepting it.

Solidarity asked several activists for their personal views about the outcome of the conference. Here is what they said:

"We know the conference changed some people's minds. Some North West region delegates had never heard the problems with AFC before, and changed from voting Yes to No! I got the impression they were shocked not to have been told these details before by the union. The fact that 99% of the points put forward by the Vote No group were never contradicted by the Yes camp, and especially that Sunderland and the North East Ambulance EI reps were unhappy with it confirmed that what you were saying was true."
- Frances Kelly, Manchester Community and Mental Health Branch

"I thought the conference was consciously stage-managed to make it seem inevitable that AfC is going to happen on time on December 1st, from Dave Prentis' media-tilted speech, to the time-wasting presentation, to the farce over the vote. The debate seemed like an unnecessary intrusion of rank-and-file democracy into the slick workings of this spin machine. Having said that, the debate itself was good; there is a genuine rank-and-file case for AfC which was expressed from the floor, but which, I think, did not address the issues powerfully expressed by the 'reject' camp, especially by those in the front line like those from Sunderland and North-East Ambulance... The decision not to hold a card vote was outrageous; I can only suspect that they feared they would lose it. We should have done like the TGWU conference did over the Liverpool dockers in 1997, and refused to leave the hall until a card vote was held, but I suppose we were all too shocked, or too soft, or whatever... The recommendation is bound to have a substantial effect on the ballot, so I would have to say on balance that it's likely to be 'yes', but it's never over until the fat lady sings......."
- Martin Booth, Cambridge

"The conference highlighted to me how much the national negotiators had to win this battle. Mike Jackson was conservative with the truth and I was embarrassed to be a UNISON steward. The decision not to have a card vote will live in my memory as one of the most dishonest and shameful things I have ever witnessed."
- April Harvey, North West Anglia

"I was disappointed in the President's decision not to allow a card vote. My opinion is that if a card vote had been taken there would have been a narrow margin for rejection. I believed, as many others did, that if we had made a recommendation for rejection we would have had more success with requests that UNISON is making in the negotiations, for example to better protect those who are going to lose out. The staff I represent in Medical Records keep the hospital going - they work under very difficult circumstances and questionable working conditions, it being a very badly designed PFI hospital. I find it very hard to look them in the face and tell them that AfC holds no rewards for them. How can I as a committed Trade Unionist advocate anything that means even one of the people I represent will lose out. A very sad day in my opinion."
- Linda Weightman, Convenor, Cumbria Health Branch

"I think we will come to regret the decision to recommend Agenda for Change if the membership follow our recommendation and we then have to live with the reality of the current proposals, and members facing either a pay freeze or an increase in their working week then coming back to their union rep and asking 'why did you tell me to vote for this?'"
- Kate Ahrens, one of the minority of Service Group Executive members who opposed recommending AfC

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