UNISON Heartlands hospital Porters’ dispute

update 19 March – Managers at Heartlands Hospital forced their porters to sign up to a new detrimental rota by using atrocious ‘fire and re-hire’ tactics.

Sign and share our petition to let Chief Exec David Rosser and Trust chair Jacqui Smith know this was unacceptable and call on them to withdraw the rota.

UNISON members working as Porters at Heartlands Hospital are in dispute with the Trust over the changes to their rotas that will cut their pay, damage their health and wellbeing, and rip up their work life balance.

Well-paid managers on salaries well over three times that of the UNISON porters, are implementing a new rotational rota which included compulsory nights and lates.

 

 

 We are the Porters, a short video ballad by Banner Theatre produced in solidarity with striking porters, at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham.   https://youtu.be/TLySeTTGrHQ

 

https://www.facebook.com/unisonheartlandsporters/

https://www.facebook.com/unisonwestmids

Some staff will incur heavy financial losses of over £400 a month.

Many porters have caring responsibilities for children, grandchildren and parents. Childminders don’t provide care for nights and lates, and elderly care providers charge excessive fees for providing personal care outside of normal hours. As a consequence, many workers will be forced to resign from their roles and exist on the paltry Universal Credit.

The very existence of the Trust is to improve people’s health, but as an employer they are proposing changes that will cut the pay and change the lives of staff in such a way that there will be a big damage to their health.

Management claim that the changes to the rota are driven by data, but the data they used excluded important data from A&E and the Medical Assessment Units (MAU/Wards 22 and 23). The management analysis is so flawed as to be useless. 

The Trust implemented this rota a couple of years ago at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, and in that time many experienced porters have left the Trust as a direct result. UNISON has spoken to some of those who have stayed and they now have no work life balance and see very little of their family and friends, which has caused huge stress and anxiety.

 

 

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