Star date: 13th October 2014

NHS STAFF NOT EVEN GETTING 1% RISE AS ANGER GROWS AT SALFORD ROYAL HOSPITAL

"It's a blatant attack on the NHS and the people who provide the NHS services" UNISON rep

NHS trade union pickets were out in force at Salford Royal Hospital this morning as porters, domestics, care assistants and even a patient walked out in support of a four hour strike for fair pay.

While the Government is pushing the line that it has offered a 1% pay rise, the reality, say staff, is that less than half of NHS staff will receive it, while managers get performance related bonuses, MPs are in line for 11% rises and huge amounts of money are being spent on buildings and Fat Cats by the Salford Royal NHS Trust.

Full details here...

It's 7:15am, it's still dark but Eccles Old Road is being lit up by flag and placard waving NHS staff beginning their four hour strike for fair pay. As the roads outside Salford Royal Hospital fill up with commuter cars the noise is getting louder too with constant beeps of support for those standing up to the ConDem Government.

To one side stands Michelle, a patient with muscle wasting problems, who has walked off her ward in her dressing gown and drip to stand with the workers.

"I think it's absolutely disgusting that the Government won't raise their wages, 1% is absolutely disgusting" she says "The Conservative Party are all for themselves, and whoever gets into Number 10 promise all these things for workers but once they get in they couldn't care less about the damn workers. It's not on. I'm going to stay here for the full four hours to support these workers."

Even the 1% that the Government says it is offering is not all that it seems, it's only for those who are on the top of their pay band.

"We have in the NHS what they call incremental pay rises, and basically it's a training rate so when you first come you don't get paid the full rate for the job, you have to go up every year" explains UNISON rep Sara France "If you're on one of those incremental pay rates you're not even going to get the 1%.

"If you're a domestic, you're on a band one and are cleaning this hospital and keeping it safe for the people of Salford, you will get nothing" she adds "Meanwhile managers are getting performance related bonuses.

"The Department of Health is saying that they can't afford to give a 1% pay rise, however we know that they've got the 1% in their budgets" she says "Not only that,  the pay review body recommended a 1% rise for everybody but the Tories have taken it on themselves to only give it to people who are at the top of their pay band. It's a blatant attack on the NHS and the people who provide the NHS services."

Sara talks of the huge rents being paid by the Salford Royal NHS Trust for the new PFI  building extension at the Hospital - £5.5million in interest alone last year (see previous Salford Star article – click here), while others talk of the plethora of Fat Cats permeating the Trust (see Operation Nursing the Kitty – click here). The same Fat Cats who have allegedly being putting fear into staff in an attempt to stop them joining the strike.

"I'm sick of not getting a pay rise" says Susan, an assistant practitioner at the hospital "I feel so downtrodden, and to find out that managers in this Trust are being given 14% and bonuses...it's an insult.

"This portrayal in the press that we're getting a 1% pay rise is rubbish" she adds "It's a non-consolidated payment, broken up into twelve instalments. By March next year that will be gone from my pay slip, it's not a pay rise. People are being given a carrot and stick by health minister Jeremy Hunt – either give up your increments or don't get a pay rise. How is that fair?"

...The hospital's porters are angry... "We're being treated like dirt...We've been offered nothing, we're not at the top of the banding so we don't get a bean...It's ridiculous really, our last proper pay rise was five years ago" say Anthony and Duncan.

...The domestics are angry... "We're on strike for fair pay and equal rights...We've had five years with no pay rise, we're struggling and won't receive anything this year from the 1%. MPs getting an 11% rise is an absolute joke" say Daniel and Gareth

...And those who work in the A & E department are furious too... "We're out on strike to get more pay, the whole hospital should be out. We're finding it hard because food's gone up, the bills are going up, everything is going up apart from wages" say Anne, Joanne and Sara, a domestic, a housekeeper and a support worker "But we're getting lots of support from the public."

As darkness turns to daylight, the road gets busier and the honking from passing cars gets louder...hopefully it will be heard all the way to Westminster.