TAMESIDE Care Group workers are on strike against attacks on their pay and conditions.
Almost 300 UNISON and GMB members, employed by the company in 11 residential care homes and one nursing home, voted on March 30 by an overwhelming majority to go on strike, in response to receiving notice that they were to be issued with new contracts. Tameside Care Group proposes to cut basic pay by up to £2.08 per hour, cut paid annual leave by a week, abolish sick pay and reduce the enhanced rate for Bank Holidays. The strikers have until May rile in the Day to sign the new contracts or be dismissed. These attacks follow a five year pay freeze, previous cuts in sick pay and maternity leave and the ending of enhanced rates for overtime and weekends. In 1992, the staff took a pay cut, by up to 35 percent in some cases, only two years after the homes were transferred from local authority ownership with guarantees to staff that local government pay and conditions would be protected. Tameside Enterprises Ltd and later Tameside Care Group were set up by the Council as "nonprofit making" trusts , to run Alan Thornett's firsthand account of trade lessons for trade union activists today. Pocupine Press. 448 pages, illustrated. £11.95 plus £2 post and packing, from Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. their elderly people's homes in a "hands-off" arrangement. The trusts have used repeated financial difficulties to pressurise staff into accepting pay cuts. However, despite again claiming difficulties the Group made £750,000 last year.
Bankers
According to a report in Tribune (February 61998) the Group is believed to have come under pressure from the Royal Bank of Scotland to cut staff costs, presumably to safeguard the bank's profits on capital loaned to the Trust. If true, this illustrates the damaging impact of private finance employment conditions and patient care in health and social services. Management has accused staff of neglecting the needs of residents by taking strike action. The strikers reply that care cannot be provided on the cheap, and that as permanent staff they are more committed to the residents and understand their needs better than the agency workers now in their place. The strikers have received support from the residents and their relatives, with one 90 year old man even joining the picket line for a while! In reality, care assistants do a difficult job involving high levels of skill and responsibility. Yet in capitalist society this work is not properly rewarded, not least because in Britain alone, tens of thousands of mainly women do the same work for free in the home. The skill is not recognised because it stems from women's supposedly "natural" role as carers.
The strikers have issued a hardship appeal. To donate, send cheques payable to Tameside Branch" at UNISON, 29 Booth Street, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 7LB. Also write letters of protest to Alan Firth, Managing Director, Tameside Care Group, Enterprise House, Grange Road South, Hyde SK14 5NY, sending copies to UNISON at the above address, or phone the Group's Head Office on 0161-368 9099.
In neighbouring Manchester, hundreds of care workers are balloting for industrial action, possiincluding strikes, against plans by Manchester Care to cut pay from £120 to £90 for 25 hours work.
Manchester Care took over 18 homes fromManchester City Council in 1991. The company now also plans to close two homes, using the excuse of imminent financial crisis - sounds familiar? These disputes highlight the fact that privatisation is just the start of a whole series of attacks for workers in public services. The struggle to defend public services and the pay and conditions of those who work in them doesn't stop with privatisation. Ongoing attacks need an ongoing fightback.
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