Hundreds of NHS hospital workers have voted for strike action after claims that they have lost more than £36m in pay and pension contributions over the last four years.
More than 330 low-paid workers, mainly cleaners, caterers and porters, known as facilities staff, at St George’s, Epsom and St Helier hospital group (GESH) are preparing to go on strike.
A report from their union, United Voices of the World (UVW), accuses the group of “institutional racism” because of differential pay and conditions for these in-house NHS workers, who are mostly from minority communities.
Many of these jobs were previously outsourced to private companies that offered inferior terms and conditions, but in recent years more have been brought in-house and are on more favourable NHS contracts.
In 2019, the Guardian made a documentary about a group of outsourced NHS workers who had fought to be brought in-house at Imperial College healthcare NHS trust – a move that led to significantly enhanced pay and conditions.
According to the union’s report, the facilities staff are entitled to a maximum of £13.85 an hour, while other NHS workers at the hospital group receive a minimum rate of £14.92 an hour.
According to the terms of their contract facilities workers do not receive sick pay for the first three days they are off, while other NHS staff in the group receive this from their first day. However, hospital sources said that in practice these workers were receiving sick pay from the first day they were off.
Holiday entitlement is also less for the facilities employees, who get 24 days’ holiday with no increase depending on their length of service, unlike other colleagues who receive up to 33 days plus bank holidays.
Employer pension contributions are 3%, compared with 23.7% for other NHS workers.
Based on these differential terms and conditions and the number of facilities workers at the hospital group, the report’s authors have calculated that these NHS employees have lost out on more than £30m of wages in the past four years, with some individuals working unsociable hours underpaid by up to £10,000 a year. UVW estimates a loss of more than £6m in pension entitlements.
The workers say they have been systematically excluded from the NHS’s Agenda for Change (AfC) pay and conditions and are prepared to walk out unless GESH grants them full AfC contracts.
A survey by UVW of 154 union members at the hospital group found that 83% went to work when they were unwell due to a lack of sick pay for the initial days taken off work, almost half (49.3%) were struggling to survive on their wages and nearly a quarter (23%) were falling into debt to make ends meet.
Annabella, a specialist rapid response and pathology cleaner at Epsom hospital, said: “Why this discrimination? For many of us, English is not our first language, and it feels like we are being taken advantage [of] and exploited.”
Petros Elia, UVW’s general secretary, said: “For years, GESH trust has withheld millions in vital pay and pension contributions from their lowest-paid staff. The clock has run out on this injustice with over 300 workers ready to take industrial action.”
A spokesperson for Epsom and St Helier university hospitals said: “Our porters, cleaners, catering and patient transport colleagues are hugely valued and respected – we have inherited a difficult issue when NHS finances are extremely challenging, but we are determined to treat people fairly.
“When colleagues were brought in-house, they received improved pay and conditions, including the London living wage, increased annual leave and access to the national workplace pension scheme (NEST). We are in the process of giving staff the choice to join the NHS pension scheme. We were wrong not to do this, and we are sorry for this error. We also want to offer our facilities staff equal terms and conditions, and a full review is under way.”
