Kate Ahrens - request for nomination to UNISON NEC

Dear UNISON Branch Secretary,

 

I am writing to ask for your branch's nomination in the UNISON National Executive Council elections for one of the national health service group female seats.

 

I am a nurse, working in Intensive Care in Leicester. I have been a member of Unison and a steward for 13 years and during that time we have seen huge changes across the health service. Now, I believe we are facing possibly the biggest changes of all – fundamentally altering the framework of the health service. At the same time we are having to deal with massive cuts and sustained attacks on our pay and working conditions.

 

Staff in the health service, (myself included) are dealing with a lot of emotions: we are depressed by the increasing workload with not enough people to do too much work, we are frightened about possible job cuts or service reorganisations, we are angry about the heavy-handed "efficiency savings" cutting essential job roles without consideration as to how it will impact upon service delivery; we are worried about the patients in our care; we are scared about how we are going to pay the bills next month and the month after that.

 

So we are looking to our union to understand these feelings and be prepared to help us to stand up and fight for our interests and for the future of the health service. We need a union that can show us that there are alternatives to accepting the Tory/Lib-Dem model of health care provision. That can bolster our nerve and give us the confidence to defend the services that we provide.

 

Right now, UNISON is not providing the kind of support and leadership that we need. As I write this letter, a proposal is on the table from the health service management of a framework agreement whereby NHS Trusts sign up to a "no compulsory redundancy" agreement for bands 1-6, in return for all staff agreeing to forego their incremental pay rises. UNISON has yet to comment on this proposal other than to say we are "consulting". But we need our leadership to actually lead. UNISON should have said – as even the RCN have managed to say – that this proposal is a bad one. It requires a huge sacrifice on the part of every NHS worker and offers virtually nothing in return. As it is a framework agreement, it divides us into our constituent Trusts rather than maintaining the collective strength we have when we negotiate together, leaving weaker branches vulnerable. Compulsory redundancies are just one small part of the ways in which Trusts seek to cut costs and make their workforce smaller – and as they are expensive, Trusts look for other methods first in any case. This deal won't stop any vacancy freezes, redeployments, downgradings, voluntary redundancies, forced retirements or the changes to service provision that drive some people out of their jobs because they can't bear to work under so much pressure.

 

In fact, this deal won't even stop compulsory redundancies. Ordinary nurses know that: the Nursing Times poll found that 80% of nurses who responded believed that Trust managements would renege on this deal if it was implemented. If nurses, far from being the most militant of the health service workforce have worked out that this deal should be rejected, then why is it taking so long for the leadership of our union to say so?

 

Maybe it is because the current leadership can't see a strategy for challenging the cuts. Maybe they still cling on to the always foolish idea that back-room negotiations with Government ministers can win us more than open confrontation. That notion was wrong and muddleheaded when Labour was in power. Now, with the Tories and Lib-Dems breaking every election promise either of them made, it is dangerously misguided.

 

UNISON has the potential to be so much greater than the sum of its parts. We are not just a health union, not just a local government union, not just a union for power, water and utilities workers. If we linked up our disparate service groups to act as a unified union we could be so much stronger in support of our members and the public services we all work in. Instead we are punching well below our weight. Even on issues such as public sector cuts, or our members' pensions, where our members' pay, jobs and livelihoods are directly threatened, our union is failing to use the industrial strength that comes from being one of the biggest trade unions in this country's history. I believe this failure is the responsibility of the National Executive Council and I want to put it right.

 

I want to be part of a new leadership of this union; one that will fight on the issues that matter most to us – saving the health service from the government's attacks, defending our members terms and conditions at work, fighting against privatisation in all its forms.

 

If elected to the NEC, I will make it a principle to report back to those that had elected me the decisions made in all the committee on which I sit and the role that I play in making those decisions. In a democratic organisation it is vital that the members can assess what their representatives are doing so that they can hold them to account, otherwise informed decision making is not possible. I will regularly report, through e-mail reports sent to each health branch secretary (and to anyone else who wants them), on all the work that I do on your behalf if I am re-elected to the NEC. That way, you, the members can honestly assess my worth to you as your representative.

 

The nomination period opens on January 11th and closes on February 18th. I hope that your branch will decide to nominate me, and also to nominate Shona Greig, Len Hockey and John Malcolm in the other health seats.

 

Please get in touch with me if you have any questions about my candidature or my views on any issue within the union.

 

Yours in solidarity

 

Kate Ahrens

 

Kate Ahrens