Sodexo members strike in North Devon (Photo: UNISON)

The SFWU has sent a message of solidarity to members of the UK public service union UNISON, who have been taking industrial action following a three year battle to be paid the correct wages by their employer and the hospital trust they work for.
 
More than 200 UNISON members, who are employed by contractor Sodexho at the North Devon NHS Trust in the South West of England, started a two day strike at midnight on 5 January over the company and the hospital trust's refusal to pay them new rates due three years ago.


Back in 2005, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), unions and private contractors signed a joint national statement to end the two-tier workforce in the health service by giving staff working for contractors the same ‘Agenda for Change’ pay and conditions as colleagues working directly for the NHS.

Although UNISON says the North Devon trust received money to cover this, and the national agreement should have been implemented in October 2006, the cleaners, porters and cooks and others employed by Sodexo are still waiting for a pay rise and back pay.
 
UNISON membership has risen from 45 to more than 200 between June last year and the end of 2009.


The trust and Sodexo have responded to the workforce getting organised and threatening industrial action by agreeing to Agenda for Pay sick pay and holiday entitlements from the beginning of this year, but have still not moved on paying the workers the correct rate or back pay.
 

The SFWU sent the following message of solidarity to UNISON members working for Sodexho:
 
“Over 3000 members of our union employed in our public health service (orderlies, food service workers, cleaners, security workers, laundry workers and hospital-based home support workers) send your members employed by Sodexo best wishes for the struggle you have taken up against yet another public health contractor trying to get away for paying exploitative wage rates.
 
In 2007 our union took on the New Zealand public health contractors (Compass, Spotless, OCS and ISS) to force them to pay the same pay rates, pay scales, overtime rates and penal rates as District Health Boards were paying to their directly-employed staff.
 
The dispute took nearly two years before we forced every contractor to agree to the payments but this victory has not just benefitted our members in the public hospital system, but has given added courage to those members employed in schools and in the commercial cleaning and catering sectors.
 
The struggle for parity between workers employed by public health and education authorities and those employed by contracting companies is a worldwide struggle.
 
Just as the transnational contracting companies will be watching your fight so too will hundreds of thousands of other workers around the globe.
 
Best Wishes.
 
Solidarity from New Zealand”