Around 40 striking workers and supporters gathered at the picket-line in front of the Second Step office in Bristol on Friday. I spoke to colleagues who work with homeless people and people with mental health issues, helping them to access basic services or therapies. Other strikers usually work as recovery nurses with people who have substance issues, others counsel people who tried to take their lives.
As a mental health ‘charity’, Second Step gets contracts, amongst others from the NHS or from the Council. They employ around 400 workers in total. They work closely with AWP NHS Trust and Sirona, some Second Step workers also cooperate directly with departments at Southmead hospital and the BRI.
During the conversations it becomes clear that actually we are all ‘health workers’, but that the drive towards outsourcing has split our work apart. One colleague told me that she had worked as a recovery nurse within the NHS before, on a Band 5. Her service was then split off and taken over by charities and finally ended up being part of a Second Step contract. By then the same job was paid around a Band 3 wage. While Sirona matches their basic wage structure with the NHS Agenda for Change, Second Step wages tend to be around £2,000 a year lower.
Second Step management refuses to open the books and show how much they are paid for each contract. Independent inquiries revealed that the NHS contracts are definitely paid enough in order to guarantee Second Step workers a pay equal to their NHS colleagues. The payment for Council contracts hasn’t been increased over the last five years. If management would make that clear to everyone there would at least be a chance to exert external pressure on the Council to adjust their contract conditions to general inflation.
Second Step workers are on strike for better pay and conditions and for union recognition. Management is picky and doesn’t want that workers have control over some main issues, such as health and safety, dealing with bullying and harassment and pay negotiations. They say that the current ‘staff forum’, as fig leave of worker representation, would be sufficient. Workers also mentioned a very high case load of 30 to 40 ‘users’, which makes it difficult to do their job properly – something that we can relate to in the hospitals.
As occupational therapists and therapy technicians we know how difficult it can be to discharge hospital patients safely. There are so many different community care organisations and services and the coordination is challenging and takes up a lot of time and effort. There is no reason to split up health workers like that, apart from the state’s interest to save money and management’s interest to defend their private fiefdoms. Why would AWP close the only NHS detox unit in Bristol, situated at Southmead hospital? They say the money they received from the Council wasn’t enough, but we all know that people who don’t have a good detox will end up in Emergency Departments and on general wards sooner or later – which is a worse experience for the patients and for the workers who care for them (not to mention that it won’t be a ‘cheaper’ way to deal with the social issue). Why would the sexual health clinic attached to the BRI cut staff, at a time when there is an increased need for its services? Just because of the dependence on outsourced contracts.
The Second Step strike should be a united strike of all health workers, against the divisions the current system creates. Equal pay and conditions for all and a direct cooperation under the control of those who actually do the work!
