2 Compass strikes bite - UNISON members dig in for long disputes‏

Workers in Southampton and Buckinghamshire return to work at 10.00 am this morning after the first of a number of strikes. 200 cleaners at Southampton and 148 ancillary workers at High Wycombe and Amersham hospitals are involved in the disputes with their Trusts and Compass Medirest who employ them.

The issues sit right at the heart of the debate over NHS Pay. These are the lowest paid workers in the NHS but disgracefully many of them don't even earn the lowest wages under Agenda for Change. In Buckinghamshire - the wealthiest local authority area in the country - workers are on £6.35 an hour flat rate for all overtime and weekend working. They get no sick pay. The Trust is in deficit but continues to pay its CEO over £200,000 a year. Compass recorded a pre tax profit of £989 million this year. The workers don't feel that 'we are all in it together'.
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Yesterday Roger McKenzie, UNISON Assistant General Secretary, told a rally in High Wycombe 'at the front end it is about sick pay, but its really about dignity and respect in the workplace'. Workers responded enthusiastically to his speech - they feel that respect is lacking from employers who don't pay you for being off sick when you are on the lowest wages in the hospital. 64% of these workers do not have English as their first language - many of the chants and placards are in Polish - and yet the unity between all the workers is solid

Over £1,000 was collected in buckets from the public using High Wycombe hospital - showing the extent of public support. The workers then marched through the Eden shopping centre where shop workers joined in the demonstration chanting 'we want sick pay'. The mood is so different from previous decades and forms of peaceful civil disobedience - copied from students - are popular amongst these workers and the general public.

In Southampton 200 workers surrounded Trust headquarters and spotted the Chief Executive - also on £200,000 plus bonuses - abandoning a meeting on the ground floor as young women employed as cleaners hammered on the windows demanding their back pay. As press photographers crowded around the scene security guards tried to stop one of them taking photographs only to be surrounded by workers chanting 'freedom of the press'

In both these workplaces the workers started with low density and a lack of union organisation. Sustained work by Organisers built up the density and the involvement ofworkers over 9 months so that the workers own Leaders run the campaign. They are trained by Organisers to keep the density high which guarantees these workers will last the course.

In Southampton talks will start again on 11 January at ACAS. In Bucks talks are not scheduled.

These workers are digging to win back the thousands they have lost. They have no choice.