Hospital strikes set to take place after WWL bosses and Unison fail to reach agreement

Talks between members of the trade union, Unison, and bosses at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) have failed to resolve concerns about the role of the new private NHS company, WWL Solutions Limited.

There are fears that if jobs are transferred from the trust to WWL Solutions Limited then employees could be more vulnerable to pay cuts and changes to their contract.

It affects jobs including catering, cleaning and portering. 

Around 600 Unison members are set to take part in the strikes. They will be joined by members of the trade union Unite.

Unison believe the trust has an outsourcing plan which involves the setting up of WWL Solutions and will allow it to save money through avoiding VAT liabilities, potentially getting staff to do non-NHS work and cutting workers' costs.   

Unison North West Regional Organiser Sean Gibson said: “The trust simply refuses to listen to its staff.  

"The staff want to remain part of the core NHS team – not outsourced to a new company.

“The trust previously offered current staff guarantees about their future terms and conditions. 

"We put this to members but it was overwhelmingly rejected in a ballot. 

"Staff just want to stay in the direct employment of the trust.  That should not be too much to ask.       

“Staff are at their wits’ end with the trust and its refusal to listen. 

"We have been in consultation about these proposals since August 2017 and our members have voted against them at every opportunity and by big margins.  

"Staff have been incredibly patient but they are now prepared to take strike action to try to make the trust listen and withdraw their proposals."

Unison says an upcoming national pay rise for NHS staff is due to funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

But if the trust outsourced staff to WWL Solutions on June 1 it would receive no extra funding to meet this cost. 

Sean Gibson added: “The trust present their delay in implementing this plan as being evidence of their willingness to listen and consult but this is disingenuous. 

"They have refused to engage meaningfully throughout this process and have failed even to share the business case for WWL Solutions. 

"We believe that they are hell-bent on pursuing their outsourcing plan and are only delaying until they receive Department of Health and Social Care funding.

“When faced with such an intransigent employer that is set on such a damaging course, it is wholly justified for staff to be prepared to take industrial action.”

WWL has hit back at claims made by Unison.    

WWL chief executive Andrew Foster said: "It is completely untrue for Unison to say that we have ignored staff concerns.

"Firstly, when the initial ballot revealed that staff were unhappy, we invited Unison to tell us exactly what were staff’s main concerns.

"They gave us a list of five top concerns and we provided the strongest possible response on each of them.

"For example, we have absolutely guaranteed that transferring staff will continue to have NHS pay terms and conditions and we have confirmation that they will stay in the NHS Pension scheme.

"Secondly, when union staff said that they were still not satisfied with these assurances, we offered a timeout, postponing any final decision until the end of June.

"During this period we are asking unions and staff to come up with alternative proposals that will still deliver the scale of savings that we are obliged to achieve by the NHS financial situation.

"Thirdly, when union staff voted to take strike action we took the initiative to invite ACAS in to try to mediate a solution.

"We are still in this period of listening so it is very premature to take strike action.

"It is also completely untrue to say that staff are threatened with outsourcing.

"The whole point of creating a wholly owned subsidiary company is to keep jobs in the NHS. This is insourcing, not outsourcing. 

"A recent briefing paper by NHS Providers states 'wholly owned subsidiaries deliver a variety of benefits to the NHS. In many cases, they are an alternative to outsourcing services to the private sector; it would be inaccurate and misleading to say that they are being used to avoid VAT or as a backdoor to privatisation'.

"Far from being an intransigent employer, WWL has a long tradition of working in partnership with staff and trades unions.

"It has won many awards for staff engagement and has by far the best staff survey results of all the trusts in GM and one of the best set of results in the entire country.

"In the latest staff survey, 73 per cent of our staff said they would recommend us as a place to work compared to the NHS average of 61 per cent.

"While it is true that the large majority of union members have voted for industrial action, we conducted an opinion survey of all affected staff, including union members, which gave a very different result.

"Seventy four per cent said that they were satisfied by the assurances they had been given and 82 per cent said that the wholly owned subsidiary is the best option.

"Unison is whipping up a politically motivated storm in Wigan while it gave no significant opposition to similar changes within the last twelve months in places such as Bolton and Blackpool.

"It has not been honest with staff about the true alternatives.

"Unison’s own suggestion to meet our financial challenge is to make savings through reducing staff numbers.

"This would mean around 10% fewer jobs in the Trust, placing great strain on staff and on patient services.

"The WWL Solutions proposal would maintain and increase staffing levels and no member of staff would suffer any detriment at all as a result of the transfer.

"We have great affection and respect for our staff and hope that they will see that strike action is in no-one’s best interest and that the trust will eventually choose the option that brings the greatest benefits both to them and to the stability of the trust."