NIPSA NEWS
NIPSA NEWS January 2014_Layout 1 30/01/2014 08:40 Page 1
THE NEWSPAPER OF THE LEADING PUBLIC SERVICE TRADE UNION
Pension contracts shredded by Assembly – See page 3
Smear test warning for over 50s – See page 5
Asbestos warning for students and staff – See page 6
JANUARY 2014 Tel: 028 90661831 www.nipsa.org.uk
Union leading fight against austerity measures – See pages 8/9
Battle to save Consumer Council gathers pace See pages 10/11
Union campaign to Pay protests planned save 300 DVA jobs NIPSA members are to join other public service workers in calling for a decent pay increase at a series of UK-wide lunchtime protests on February 4. Members will stand shoulder to shoulder with colleagues from UNISON, UNITE and GMB at the demos which will be held outside City Hall in Belfast and the Guildhall in Derry/Londonderry at 12.30pm. They are being staged to show a united opposition to the unfair treatment of NJC workers. NJC Trade Union Side lodged a claim in late October last year for a £1 per hour rise for workers in schools, housing, libraries, further education colleges as well as education and library board and local government. To date no response has been received from NJC employers. However, a response is expected shortly. Deputy General Secretary Alison Millar told NIPSA News: “This claim for £1 per hour for all NJC workers comes after a three-year pay freeze followed by a mea-
gre 1% increase in 2013 – which thousands of workers in education have yet to have paid. “Staff working in local government, housing, education, libraries and further education have seen their pay decrease by more than 16% in real terms. “Thousands of workers in these sectors are low-paid workers and struggle to meet the ever-increasing costs of day to day living. “Many are in receipt of tax credits and housing benefit to top up their income. This cannot be right – NIPSA demand a decent increase for all public sector workers so that they do not have to rely on top-up benefits to make ends meet.” She added: “It is important that NJC Employers Side ensure that they reverse the trend of the last four years and award a decent increase – the NJC Trade Union claim for £1 per hour is reasonable against the backdrop of the past four years of 1% effectively over the last four years. Our members demand a decent pay increase.”
A&E IN CRISIS Pictured (fourth from left) is NIPSA’s Ryan McKinney, with NI MPs and councillors outside Downing Street, before they handed in a petition calling for the jobs to stay.
See story on page 2
NIPSA has continually warned of the drastic impact Transforming Your Care is having on programmes of care within the Health Service. The recent crisis over A&E provision is a measure of how much NHS services are being compromised by the TYC project. A ‘major incident’ was declared at the A&E department at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast on January 8. On what should have been a normal Wednesday night, doctors and nurses had to deal with a massive backlog of patients with more than 40 left waiting on trol-
leys. The unit was stretched to the limit and staff were called at home and drafted in to cope with a totally chaotic situation. A potentially tragic incident also occurred recently during the first weekend closure of Downe and Lagan Valley’s A&E units, which saw paramedics rushing an ill child 30 miles to the nearest A&E at Daisy Hill, Newry. The irony was that the child lives only a few miles from the Downe Hospital. These stories as well as similar coverage in the media highlights the desperate situation in local A&E units.
But, just as important, these incidents also represent the wider problem developing across the Health Service in Northern Ireland. And some NIPSA Branches have expressed the view that the Assembly Executive’s health cuts could potentially lead to deaths which otherwise would have been avoidable. What has been the Health Minister Edwin Poots’ response to the crisis at the Royal Victoria Hospital? Incredibly and disgracefully the Minister described the life-threatening situation as a “one-off incident”.
He then unbelievably went so far as to effectively blame patients attending the A&E department on January 8 by calling on the public to “be careful as to how they use emergency services”. And Mr Poots said this while refusing to accept any responsibility for policies he implemented as a Minister. On the back of these developments NIPSA called on the Northern Ireland Assembly and Mr Poots to review the provision of A&E services across Northern Ireland as a matter of urgency. Story continues on page 4
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