Nurses and midwives should not be held to ransom on fee increase says UNISON

(17/05/12) UNISON, the UK’s largest union, is calling on the government to stop hard pressed nurses and midwives from facing a registration fee hike.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) today announced that it will begin consulting on raising the annual fee that nurses and midwifes have to pay to work from £76 to £120 per year. The last fee increase came in 2007, when nurses were asked to pay more to allow the NMC to build up its reserves.

The union said that serious questions need to be asked about financial management at the troubled regulatory body, which has been in special measures since 2008, and has had six chief executives and three chairs in that time.

Gail Adams, UNISON head of nursing said:

“Hard pressed nurses and midwives will rightly be very angry about plans to make them pay more to work. Many of these vital health workers and their families are already struggling to make ends meet. Not only have they had their pay frozen for two years, with two more years of pay austerity on the horizon, they are also having to pay more for their pensions.

“The government cannot stand by and let the pressure keep piling onto nurses and midwives. Not only should it start applying serious scrutiny to the NMC, it must also step in and persuade the council that now is not the time to raise its fees. Health workers should not have to pay the price for the NMC’s own failures and for the government’s failure to police this body properly.”

UNISON is seeking an urgent meeting with the NMC and with ministers, and is calling on the NMC to undertake an urgent review of its financial systems. The union made it clear that it will not support the fee rise.

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The in-house laundry service at Airedale hospital is under threat.

Sign the online petition here...

Since 1970 it has been providing high quality linen services, keeping patients in comfort and staff in clean hygienic uniforms.  The service provides to hundreds of people in medical settings from North Yorkshire to Leeds and Bradford, as well as for ill people at home.

Trust management at Airedale are now saying that the service is unviable and may not be worth investing in.  This puts jobs and a quality in-house service at risk.

Sign the online petition here...

(Closing date for signing the petition 30 June 2012 - but please sign it now! - Thank you)

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UNISON strike ballot opens as Council tells staff to take a pay cut or take a hike

(27/04/12) 2,400 members of public services union UNISON will be asked whether they are prepared to take industrial action over Doncaster Council’s decision to tear up their contracts of employment.

The Council has invited its 5,700 employees to volunteer to take a cut to their pay and conditions in order to meet the Mayor’s budget decision to take £6m from workers’ pay packets.

The Council set a deadline of 20 April for employees to accept the cuts but despite the best efforts of some council managers to bully employees into accepting more than 1700 people have not done so.

UNISON Regional Organiser Robin Symonds said, “We have received numerous alarming reports of members having been told not to bother coming to work if they don’t sign to accept the cuts. We’ve had people rung up at home and women in tears. It is really concerning what some managers will do to make people sign. Despite this shameful behaviour some 1700 have stood firm, this is more than 3 times the number the Council predicted would not sign.

“The Council is now going to dismiss and re-engage all those who have not accepted. In our view they are going to act unlawfully by backdating the cuts by more than 3 months in many cases. They don’t seem to know what they are doing.

“We have advised our members not to sign to accept the changes and to stand firm in the face of bullying managers. We will pursue legal action if the Council acts unlawfully but we want our members to give us a mandate for industrial action as we believe collective action is the most effective way to protect our members’ interests.

“Our members in Doncaster are magnificent and last year they took 2 days of strike action, which resulted in the Council dropping some of its proposals such as cutting sick pay. We are hoping for a solid YES vote this time to force the Council back to the negotiating table. There is an unbelievable amount of anger amongst workers and we are confident that anger will translate into votes”.

The ballot will close on 18 May with any industrial action likely to start towards the end of May.

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(29/03/2012) As part of the Raceday package UNISON receives a number of complimentary Guest Badges for the above event and as in the past these will be used to recognise Branch, Activist and Member activity in support of UNISON’s key objectives ‘Recruitment’ and ‘Organising’.

The Guest Badges will be allocated via a Regional Award Scheme which is open to all UNISON Branches, Activists and Members in the Region. There are 28 Guest Badges in total and each award winner (Branch or Individual) will receive 2 Guest Badges – there will be a total of 14 Awards under two categories:-

1) BRANCH AWARDS CATEGORY

The awards will be made direct to Branches selected on the basis of several ‘recruitment’ and ‘organising’ criteria. The aim will be to include a wide range of Branches across all Service Groups.

2) INDIVIDUAL AWARDS CATEGORY (download nomination form here)

For ‘Best UNISON Recruiter’ and ‘Best UNISON Organiser’
Nominations and Applications for this Category are sought from Branches, Stewards and Members.

Read all the details here...

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The 2012 Y&H Education programme is now out. You can download a copy here...

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Yorkshire & Humberside delegates contributed enormously to conference, so we asked them if they spoke at conference this year (or tried to but didn’t make it), which motion or amendment and why. Download the report here...

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