I’m standing fo Unite Executive Council to push Unite to invest in Health, to rebuild union organisation so we can effectively campaign to restore NHS pay. I'm an A&E nurse, and have worked in the NHS for 17 years. As Branch Secretary at Guy's & St Thomas Hospitals, I have led multiple strikes to win pay increases, and to protect and improve working conditions.
For too long Unite has neglected Health, its single largest sector. Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Steel, all have dedicated campaigns for their members, yet the Health sector members of Unite have no dedicated campaign about the NHS cuts, poor pay or privatisation of our services. I want to change this, with your support.
Please watch my campaign video below:
Unite NHS reps are tired of empty promises around organising in the Health Sector. The crisis in the NHS gets worse every month, our meagre yearly pay rises are destroyed by inflation. Yet we see little action from the top of Unite. Union organisation is threadbare in many workplaces; workplace reps are overworked, burnt out, and their numbers are falling. Members struggle to access advice and support.
I want Unite to invest seriously in organising the health sector, rebuild health branches and develop an industrial strategy to fight year round to stop the job cuts and restore the value of NHS pay lost to inflation. Many of our members in London are on poverty pay, winning a pay rise is essential to allow them to continue to live and work in the capital.
If elected I commit to visit branches and RISCs around the country to hear directly from members and reps what support they need, and communicate this back to the Executive.
I will write and publish reports from Executive Council meetings - creating openness and transparency - so members see what is being discussed and who is making decisions about our union and Sector.
If elected I will push Unite to:
- Invest money and organisers in rebuilding health organisation, recruiting workplace reps, ensuring branches are able to support members cases and take industrial action.
- Run national campaigns on the NHS crisis, highlighting the lack of investment and government policy causing the cuts.
- Develop an industrial strategy for the NHS; we must fight to raise NHS pay every year, like the BMA has done for doctors.
- Give no support to Labour unless they support our demands for the NHS and for workers rights. No more members’ money for the party cutting our NHS and scapegoating our migrant colleagues and patients.
- Set up a professional case worker system so members can access support and advice quickly.
- Organise anti-racist, anti-Reform campaign. We must mobilise our diverse multinational membership in protests and strikes to defeat Reforms attempts to divide us.
- Maintain commitment to internationalism: Support liberation struggles in Palestine & Ukraine, oppose wars and dictatorships in Sudan & Iran. Develop links with the workers movements there, support their struggles against foreign occupiers and domestic bosses.
