Members of Unite who work at Barts Health NHS Trust are striking iver Christmas. As part of a protest over pay, they delivered a Christmas card for health secretary Victoria Atkins. Full story at LondonWorld.com
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00:00 You are what the NHS is about, you are what the trade unions are about, and you are what
00:07 fighting back is about. So I salute you today for the campaign that you continue to wage.
00:15 We're here today along with our members who work in the NHS, three separate employers
00:21 demanding fairness, dignity and respect. We've got members here who are demanding safe staffing,
00:27 fair pay. We've got members who haven't even been given the 2023 pay award in full, they've
00:34 been denied the lump sum and that's appalling. We're not going to have members treated unfairly,
00:39 we're not going to have a two, three, four system, which is what the Department of Health
00:44 want. So we're here to demand justice and it's part of our ongoing campaign. Today is great,
00:49 we'll be back again and again and again and the strike action will continue until we've won.
00:54 We're demanding that our members receive the lump sum. There's a non-consolidated lump sum
00:59 payment as part of the 2023 pay award and there are NHS workers who are not receiving that. These
01:06 people are often doing the same job as those who have received it and the fact that they're not
01:11 getting it is unjust and unfair. So we've demanded that they get paid the lump sum immediately.
01:15 We're out here today to show the Department of Health that these workers who are taking
01:28 strike action from all across the country, from Dudley in the West Midlands, from members in Kent
01:34 in the south east of England and members in East London, they deserve to be treated equally with
01:39 their colleagues that work in the NHS. These workers were working outside the NHS for non-NHS
01:44 employees and didn't get their full unconsolidated cash lump sum payment like their colleagues who
01:49 work beside them in the NHS. So we're here to say that the Department of Health ought to pay up and
01:56 give these members their cash lump sum that they deserve and that they're entitled to and we won't
02:02 give up until they pay up.