Christina McAnea – Page 9

Blog: Celebrating our Black LGBT+ activists

This month we lit up our UNISON Centre in Pride colours to celebrate all our LGBT+ members during LGBT+ History Month.

As this is UNISON’s year of Black workers, I also want to celebrate our Black LGBT+ activists, both from our past and present, who’ve led the way in the struggle for equality and LGBT+ rights both within UNISON and across the UK.

Rizwan Sheikh was a leading activist in lesbian and gay, and Black members groups. He became a senior activist in his region and then nationally. He was very proud to be the first Black co-chair of UNISON’s national lesbian and gay committee (as it was known at the time, now the LGBT+ national committee) and campaigned for supporting migrant workers in the Northern region.

Then there’s Bev Miller, our first ever lesbian chair of the national Black members’ committee and a tireless advocate for Black LGBT+ rights for many years in UNISON.

Dave Merchant’s activism on trans rights was pioneering. He was the first trans man to co-chair the national LGBT+ committee and drove the work on trans equality in workplaces and within UNISON itself.

Tim Roberts is now Eastern regional secretary, but he has always been an influential advocate for equality, whether it was on our national LGBT+ committee, or challenging racism and discrimination in the workplace. Tim led the way for UNISON to have continued representation at UK Black Pride.

We also can’t forget Ted Brown and Dirg Aaab-Richards, both national lesbian and gay committee members who led a successful campaign against media homophobia in the 1990s. They organised an advertising boycott of The Voice, until it issued an apology for a homophobic comment piece about Justin Fashanu and pledged to include positive coverage.

Another prominent activist at this time was Claire Andrews. She had big ideas about where we were going as a movement and what that meant for Black lesbians and gay men. She served on both the national lesbian and gay committee and Black members committee and ensured that there was space in both to debate their issues and set union policy.

Anyone that has been to LGBT+ conference over the years will know Paul Amann, who has been part of the LGBT+ standing orders committee for 20 years! Paul has led campaigns for LGBT+ refugees and was a strong advocate for LGBT+ rights at the Qatar World Cup. He was a vocal critic of the World Cup being held in a homophobic country.

These are just a small number of our activists that have made our LGBT+ Black history. To all our Black LGBT+ activists past and present, we thank you for your activism and for making our union what it is today.

The national LGBT+ committee’s Black caucus have created a quiz and presentation that can be used by UNISON members in their LGBT+ history month activities. You can find it here.

The article Blog: Celebrating our Black LGBT+ activists first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: A significant step forward for pregnant workers and new parents

The beginning of February marked a significant step forward for pregnant workers and new parents, as a bill to provide new and expecting parents with additional protections in the workplace passed its third reading.

UNISON worked with Dan Jarvis MP on the new law – the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill – to prevent employers from laying off expectant mothers and new parents, by extending redundancy protections to six months.

Raising a family is becoming even more expensive as the cost of living crisis continues. What new parents often need most is job security, but pregnant workers and new parents are too often first in line for redundancy.

Around three quarters of working people currently experience maternity discrimination and 54,000 pregnant women are forced out of their jobs each year.

In theory, the law already gives women on maternity leave priority over other employees at risk of redundancy – a woman on maternity leave is “entitled to be offered” any suitable alternative vacancy, where one is available, as soon as her job is at risk of redundancy.

However, in practice, this is often not happening. Those who have just given birth or have been away from the workplace for months, are unlikely to pursue an employment tribunal claim. So, it’s hardly surprising that maternity discrimination cases form a disproportionately large percentage of UNISON’s legal caseload.

To make matters worse, many maternity protections are under attack through the Retained EU Law Bill, including protections against discrimination for pregnant women and women on maternity leave, and the right to suitable alternative work on no less favourable terms.

Without these core protections, UK workers – especially women – will be thrown back to the 1970s, which means the bill is even more urgent.

This new law will represent a significant win for UNISON members as well as add greater workplace protections to the statute book, and I hope it receives the full support of the House of Lords too.

The article Blog: A significant step forward for pregnant workers and new parents first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Government inaction just leads to more action

An escalation in our industrial action is about to cause more headaches for the Westminster government – an administration that’s already buckling under the pressure.

Working people are standing up for themselves and refusing to quietly accept the pay crisis and a decline in their living standards. In contrast, the government ministers responsible for sorting out public sector pay disputes have gone silent.

There have been no meetings between UNISON and ministers since before 11 January, and it has been weeks since Rishi Sunak protested on the media that his ‘door was always open’.

But is it? No invite has arrived in my office, and our request to meet the chancellor has gone unanswered.

Even odder, is the health secretary’s admission to the health select committee that the government hadn’t submitted any evidence to the NHS pay review body

One thing is for sure, the pay crisis that our members are dealing with won’t go away if the government sticks to their current game plan of ignoring workers and their unions.

And the constant dire economic forecasts give nobody hope that the government knows what they’re doing. As we’ve had no progress in resolving our disputes, we’ve announced more NHS and Environment Agency strike dates.

Environment Agency workers will walk out for another 12 hours from 7am on Wednesday, 8 February.

Meanwhile, ambulance workers in London, Yorkshire, the South West, North East and North West will go on strike again on Friday, 10 February.

Our NHS action, on top of that of other unions, means there’ll be action in the NHS every day this week.

For members who take the difficult decision to go on strike and lose a day’s pay, it’s tough. They need all of our solidarity and our moral support.

We’ve also set up an appeal, and any contribution you can make to the strike fund is very much appreciated.

UNISON has been taking sustained industrial action for some time now. We are now welcoming additional donations to our strike fund.
You can make a one-off bank transfer or set up a regular standing order to:
Account name: UNISON
Account no: 20170693
Sort code: 60-83-01
If you want your donation to go to the health strike fund, please use the reference health. If you want your donation to go to Environment Agency, please use the reference env. If you don’t use a reference it will go to the general strike fund.

The article Blog: Government inaction just leads to more action first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Why we must defend the right of working people to strike

Thousands of UK workers are being forced to take industrial action to protect their pay, standard of living and the services they provide. But rather than helping workers live decent lives and improving the services that millions of people rely on every day, the Westminster government is turning its back on working people.

Strikes are always a symptom of a problem. But the government’s answer is to fast-track new legislation that will add further restrictions on the right to strike in the health, education, transport, and fire and rescue services, as well as border security and parts of the nuclear, radioactive waste and fuel sectors.

It’s another sticking plaster that won’t fix the deep-rooted causes of industrial disputes. Another distraction from their inability to manage the country’s public services and our economy.

UNISON is supporting the TUC’s campaign to defend the right to strike because this government believes its priority is taking away a legitimate part of industrial negotiations and more importantly, a fundamental right of workers – to withdraw their labour.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is continuing its rapid progress through Parliament this week. It exposes the government’s weakness in coping with a mess of their own making and a failure to respond to the needs of working people.

UNISON’s members are essential workers in public services, and our strike action takes place only after thorough plans for emergency cover have been negotiated and agreed with employers. But under these proposals, even if workers vote for legal industrial action, they could be forced to cross picket lines or be sacked if they don’t.

Sign the petition

The government claims the new law will bring us in line with the rest of Europe, but the European Trades Union Congress doesn’t agree. It says: “The UK already has among the most draconian restrictions on the right to strike in Europe, and the UK government’s plans would push it even further away from normal, democratic practice across Europe.”

Three reasons why the bill is bad for you

Draconian and undemocratic measures are about to be imposed by a government that has spent over a decade creating the situation we’re in now. High inflation, a pay crisis in our public sector, the NHS on its knees, and an economic outlook as grim as the constant sleaze that flows out of Whitehall.

This bill will do nothing to change any of that, and we must be part of the campaign to defeat it.

More on the TUC campaign to defend the right to strike

Right to strike rallies Wednesday 1 February

The article Blog: Why we must defend the right of working people to strike first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Christina McAnea tours pickets on second NHS strike day

Photos ©Steve Forrest/Workers’ Photos

Christina McAnea spent the second joint union NHS strike day, yesterday 11 January, touring picket lines in Yorkshire and the North East to show her support and solidarity for the striking ambulance workers.

She began the day in Sheffield at Longley ambulance station where, as they did across the county, paramedics walked out at 10am.

As the picket was set up, she spoke to the workers about why they were striking and, once the brazier was burning, addressed the strikers and the press who had gathered.

Speaking of the recent development where the secretary of state for health had acknowledged that, to deal with this crisis, the government would have to talk to the unions about pay for this year, rather than pay for the future, Christina said: “There’s been lots of speculation about what offer they might come back with, but nothing formal has been put forward yet, that’s why today’s strike has gone ahead.

“We have another strike planned for the 23 January, which gives the government about a week and a half to try and sit down with us and resolve this before we have to take another strike day.

“My door is always open and I’m happy to turn up at their door any time to talk to them about pay.”

She said that the move by the government to bring minimum service levels in during strikes was an “absolute distraction”, adding that it would mean then the NHS “would only have minimum staffing levels, when on strike.”

As though to illustrate the point, just before she began her speech, several members of the press were forced to move after two workers were called off the newly formed picket line and jumped in an ambulance to respond to an urgent call – as had been negotiated by the unions and employers in providing life and limb cover.

She continued, saying the move from the government shows it isn’t tackling the dispute, but is ”trying to take everybody’s eye off the ball and get us looking ‘over there’ instead of looking at what the crisis actually is”.

She finished by thanking the strikers, saying she knew “this is not what you want to be doing – you care about the patients and the public you look after, but you have our full backing from our union and my huge gratitude to you for the courage it has taken you to be here today”.

Two paramedics smile and hold 'official picket' placards outside Longley ambulance station, Sheffield

Unison General Secretary, Christina McAnea, visits picket lines at Ambulance stations across Yorkshire, in support of striking Ambulance and support crews. Photo shows the Longley Ambulance Station, Sheffield.

Photos ©Steve Forrest/Workers’ Photos

Rotherham

Christina then travelled to Rotherham and Wath ambulance station. There she met a long-serving patient transport service team with over 75 years experience between the three of them, Wendy, Michaela and John. They spoke, clearly emotional over the situation, about how their job has changed over those years.

Wendy said: “Years ago, we used to take patients home from discharge, we used tp make fires for them, make cups of tea or coffee, or get them bread and milk because they’ve got nothing in the house when they arrive back.”

Now the team can’t do that “because we’ve not got time, its job after job after job”.

John said: “We came into this job because we care about people. Now it feels like they’re taking that away from us. Sometimes we even take people home and have to lock them in the house. Which, to me, is not right.”

“We hate doing that,” Wendy added.

“They’re locked in, and they haven’t got the mobility to get to the door,” John continued. “God forbid if there’s a fire. We have to lock them in and put the key in the key safe so the carers can get in. But the carers might not be there for another three or four hours”.

On the degradation of relationships between colleagues, Wendy said, “A big thing is the camaraderie amongst us, there’s none of that because we’ve not got time for it, there’s no meeting up anymore”.

“The hospital used to provide us with a crew room, we could have a cup of tea and a bit of a chat,” said John. “Now we hardly see each other.”

Wendy finished by saying: “We used to love coming to work, but now it gets to Sunday night and I get anxiety, that’s where we’re at.”

Christina McAnea stand on Wath ambulance station picket line with striking ambulance workers while waving at a honking car passing by

A woman ambulane worker holds a flag over her should with a small brazier fire and blue sky in the background

Photos ©Steve Forrest/Workers’ Photos

York

Next stop was York ambulance station, a picket line where 999 call handlers were also striking. Call handlers had not walked out in the initial strike just before Christmas and across the region they were striking in batches to keep providing cover to protect patient safety.

Shortly after Christina arrived, they were called back in to provide cover, as another, larger call handling centre in Wakefield was readying to walk out.

Throughout the day there was strong support from the public, with one man coming up to the picket to thank the ambulance workers as the service had recently saved his wife’s life, as well as a number of other people who came to bring food and drinks to the strikers.

Christina stands on York ambulance station picket line behind a flaming brazier with strikers holding, including one holding a young child in their arms

Cathy Newman interviews Christina McAnea on camera in front of an ambulance at York ambulance station

Photos ©Steve Forrest/Workers’ Photos

Chester-le-street

A train to Durham and a quick car ride saw Christina arrive at Chester-le-street and, by virtue of its position on a busy roundabout, the loudest strike of the day with drivers continually serenading the strikers and signalling their support by honking their horns.

There the general secretary was joined by Wilma Brown, chair of UNISON’s health service group executive, who had travelled down from Scotland to offer support, along with members of UNISON’s NEC, Helen Firman and Pat Heron.

Gateshead

Christina finished her tour of the pickets in Gateshead ambulance station where the picket took place on the aptly named ‘Windy Nook Road’.

Speaking to a crowd of strikers she said: “It’s not the strikers putting the public at risk, its this government. We’ve been asking the government for six months to do something to resolve this and they’ve sat on their hands the whole time. It’s time the government did the grown-up thing and did something.”

She concluded by telling them: “You have the full support of our union and you absolutely have the public support. We are all hugely grateful to you and the work that you do.”

The article Christina McAnea tours pickets on second NHS strike day first appeared on the UNISON National site.

General secretary thanks strikers

“I want to thank you so much for taking that tough decision.” That was at the heart of a video message from UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea today, to “all of our members and activists” who took part in Wednesday’s strike action in the NHS.

Noting that the union had seen “huge public support”, Ms McAnea said that this had been “so good to see”.

And she said that it was important that members should remember that in the new year, during further industrial action.

“I hope they come to their senses and talk to us,” she said of the government. But if they don’t, UNISON is a strong union “and we are all together in this”.

And the general secretary concluded by wishing members well and hoping that they would all be able to have time off this Christmas to spend with their families.

Watch the video

Our rolling report from Wednesday’s action

Christina McAnea: A message to ambulance strikers on a difficult day

London calling – a look back at the strike in the capital

In my Liverpool home – on the picket lines in Merseyside

The article General secretary thanks strikers first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Christina McAnea: ‘It’s great to be loud and proud’

“It’s great to be able to be loud and proud – and I will continue to be loud and proud against homophobia and loud and very proud to be a trans ally, and I will ensure that UNISON always remains the best trade union for LGBT+ workers.”

That was the pledge from UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea this morning, when she addressed the union’s LGBT+ conference in Edinburgh, as she applauded the fact that being “loud and proud” was the event’s central theme.

“You have done so much to be loud and proud about,” she said.

“2022 – our biggest Pride season ever, from the Shetlands to London, Brighton to the Isle of Man.”

UNISON, she continued, had “always strongly advocated for trans rights.” The union’s “brilliant” trans equality campaign helps “give our activists the tools to combat the divisive political weaponising of trans issues,” which is damaging to trans people , but also to the “whole of society”.

The past year had seen over 400 members trained on how to be a good trans ally, while there’s also been a “bump in members taking part in UNISON’s trans caucus.”

But Ms McAnea was clear that such things were needed precisely because anti-trans discrimination is “not going away and we have to be ever more vigilant.”

“Today we will be launching an updated trans inclusion policy,” she told delegates: “Practical applications and outcomes”.

The general secretary stressed that fighting inequalities is at the heart of what the union does, adding: “That fighting trans inequality should somehow be seen as different is unacceptable.

Her broader messages to delegates was that the country faces the “same old, same old, failed Tory economic policies”.

It had been like the “Dallasdream season”, with the Conservative Party now trying to pretend that the chaos of the few months hadn’t really happened.

She also warned of a “bonfire of rights coming,” as the government seeks to ditch any and all legislation and regulations with a whiff of EU involvement about them – unless specifically saved by campaigning.

“United, we’ll be facing these issues,” said Ms McAnea, and before concluding, she reminded delegates working in the NHS to in the ongoing strike ballot – and to persuade their colleagues to vote too. It was vital to do so, she said, as “I want UNISON to be at the heart of our fight back against the Tories in Westminster”.

The article Christina McAnea: ‘It’s great to be loud and proud’ first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: It is within their power to give NHS workers the pay they deserve

UNISON is now into the second full week of our NHS pay strike ballot in England, Cymru Wales and Northern Ireland. We’re still pressing ahead with encouraging as many members as possible to vote and return their ballot papers.

The £1,400 pay award for NHS England and Cymru Wales is a real-terms pay cut for the majority of staff, and staff in Northern Ireland have been given no pay rise at all because of the political paralysis in Stormont.

Our activists and organisers have been speaking to thousands of members, every day since the ballot opened.

Meanwhile, I’ve been out visiting UNISON branches at hospital sites, ambulance stations and control rooms, to help them get the message out to their members.

Ambulance workers in London told me they’ve never seen wait-times outside hospitals so bad, while a branch secretary in a big hospital trust said they’ve had a 25% increase in the number of members requesting hardship support.

Just today, I spoke to operating department practitioners about the foodbank that’s opened in their hospital to help feed staff.

Is it any surprise that trusts are struggling to recruit? With reports of just one healthcare assistant for 14 patients on a night shift, and experienced staff – some with 30 years of service – despairingly describing an NHS that’s never had such a bad staffing crisis.

One member, who’d already voted ‘yes’ and returned their ballot paper, told me: “I want to tell the government that we’re not being selfish by trying to draw attention to the deep problems in the NHS, we’re doing this to save services and patients”.

My fears that the government was failing to either acknowledge or grasp the severity of the crisis were confirmed last night when I was on Newsnight. I had to correct Tory MP Tobias Ellwood on his NHS staff vacancy stats. He said there are 25,000 vacancies, but he’s wrong – it’s more like 135,000.

That’s the true scale of the recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS. And with government threats of a 2% pay cap next year in the public sector, the crisis is only set to deepen.

There are many things that need to be fixed in health and social care across the UK, but sorting out pay would make a huge improvement.

A real-terms pay cut, handed down after the NHS dealt with a traumatic two years through COVID, is insult after injury. And what I’m hearing from NHS staff is that they’re angry and fed up.

They were being clapped when the government needed them to go out to work every day during the pandemic – before we even knew we would find a vaccine – only to be told, now, that they shouldn’t expect their pay to keep up with the cost of living, and that they would be selfish and reckless to take strike action.

This government let frontline workers take responsibility when times were at their toughest, but now it refuses to take responsibility for the things that are in its control.

It is within the government’s power to give NHS workers the decent pay they deserve.

UNISON ambulance workers share heartbreaking stories of wait times

The article Blog: It is within their power to give NHS workers the pay they deserve first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: The government paves the way for Austerity 2.0

“It’s going to be rough” is what we’re hearing in news reports from government sources today. That’s the reality of toxic public spending cuts that are being threatened in Westminster’s latest narrative.

Sound familiar? Well, it is, because we’re heading to Austerity 2.0. We’ve been here before – the first round was painful, damaging and lasted over a decade. In a speech about the economy in 2010, on his plans to deal with the fallout of the global economic crisis, David Cameron said: “The measures that we need to deal with it will be unavoidably tough … I make no bones about that, but we will get through this together.”

Well, of course, we weren’t in it together at all. And here we are again, slap bang in the middle of our NHS strike ballot over pay, hearing rumours that Rishi Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, are planning to make public sector workers poorer, with a proposed limit on public sector pay rises to 2% in 2023/24.

Driving down living standards and the quality of life for public sector workers won’t make the UK more prosperous and isn’t a price worth paying.

I spoke this weekend at our national disabled members’ conference about the challenges ahead, because it’s important to acknowledge that the cost of living crisis bears down heaviest on our disabled members.

But I also spoke about how all our members are the real wealth creators in society. It’s a false economy to depress public sector wages and to starve services of funding. In the end, it forces dedicated and experienced staff out the door.

The likes of Amazon and Google – who should be paying their fair share in tax – rely on our members to keep their businesses booming. They need access to a workforce that’s been educated and is are fit and able to work, that can drive on roads that are well-maintained, and where health and care services are available for workers and their families. And if an accident happens, businesses will call 999 to get help from an emergency service.

More importantly, austerity affects peoples’ lives so profoundly that its legacy can last for generations. Over the last decade, the demand for food banks has soared and now even these charities are struggling to feed everyone who needs help. Child poverty has increased to shameful levels, and we haven’t seen the economic growth we were promised.

We’ve been saying this for 12 years now, while campaigning to protect our public services. We’ve been saying to the government that their ideology doesn’t work – it ruins lives.

But we won’t stop campaigning against this damaging Tory government until they’re kicked out of power and our public services are no longer in their hands.

The article Blog: The government paves the way for Austerity 2.0 first appeared on the UNISON National site.

‘Co-ordinated action unites us,’ McAnea tells TUC congress

“Our purpose binds us – co-ordinated action unites us.” That was the message at the heart of Christina McAnea’s speech to the TUC’s annual congress in Brighton today, as she moved a successful UNISON motion on Higher pay to tackle the cost of living crisis.

The general secretary had opened by telling delegates that she had been on a picket line recently in Blackpool. It was “early one morning, in the wind and the rain …

“I was talking to our UNISON members. Most of them were cleaners, caterers or porters, who work in the hospital but for a private company – OCS.

“They don’t get full NHS pay and conditions, and even during the pandemic – working Christmas day – they only got flat rate pay.

“Their ask was reasonable: pay parity with the directly-employed workers doing the same job.

Ms McAnea said that she had asked one of members how she travelled to the picket line so early.

The member replied that she walked. An hour to work/the picket line and an hour home.

“Because she could no longer afford the bus fare.”

That, said the general secretary, was the reality that was forcing people take strike action even when it meant losing pay.

She continued by telling the hall: “The picture inside our NHS hospitals is not much prettier. Almost 30% of employers have set up foodbanks to help feed their staff and another 20% are planning to bring it in.”

It was, said Ms McAnea, “a shameful period in our history.”

She reported that a care worker, forced to work 60-70 hours a week to pay her debts, had asked: “Is this life, what do you think?”

The general secretary told congress that, while working people have struggled through austerity, a deadly pandemic and are now in a devastating cost of living crisis, they face a repeat of the “penny-pinching austerity” inflicted on the country since 2010.

“Meanwhile, the UK government has been playing roulette, racking up debt on the public tab.

“All their gambling always ending with the same result – working people lose out.”

And she had surprising words of thanks for Conservative MP Sir Crispin Blunt, for his wise words over the weekend, agreeing that, “Yes, ‘the game is up’.”

But Ms McAnea said that “this should never have been a game, because it’s far too serious for that.”

With the government trying desperately to blame someone or something other than itself, it was time for it to take responsibility for a decade of spending cuts, for the political choices that have made the economy weaker and working people poorer.

The latest, desperate chaos at the heart of government she said was not “desperation to save the country, but desperation to save the Tory Party.”

But the party is sinking in the polls as mortgage repayments, energy bills, and food and travel costs are up.

“The country can’t take any more,” said Ms McAnea. “Workers can’t take any more. Only a general election … can get rid of this lot of chancers”.

She then turned her attention to the people who are putting the interests of working people first: trade unionists.

And emphasising that UNISON already works with other unions, she made the message clear: “Our purpose binds us – co-ordinated action unites us”.

Join the TUC/UNISON lobby of Parliament on 2 November to Demand Better

The article ‘Co-ordinated action unites us,’ McAnea tells TUC congress first appeared on the UNISON National site.