Victory close at Whipps X
WORKERS, OCT 2006 ISSUE
The ongoing Unison dispute at Whipps Cross Hospital, North East London, now enters a new stage. After eight days of hugely effective strike action, negotiators have achieved almost 99 per cent of the union's demands.
More money is on the table: higher wage rates kick in on 1 October, and significant sums of backdated wages – all of which the Initial workers were entitled to under a 2003 agreement – are available, though originally denied and resisted by the hospital trust and the contractor. The employers are reeling, battered, beaten and on the ropes.
Unity, discipline, collectivity: Whipps Cross workers on strike during July
The victory now needs to be sealed, moving from being on the offensive to consolidating the position. As the pay battle moves into this new stage the political struggle to rid Whipps Cross of the contractors and their petty bullying disciplinary regime has to be a campaigning goal of this group of low-paid workers, who have without doubt demonstrated the value of every founding principle of trade unionism – unity, discipline, collectivity.