Yesterday, on International Nurses Day 2018, I sat on my break at work faced with one of the hardest decisions of my career to date - to accept or reject the pay deal.
My union, UNISON, has opened the ballot and the RCN has already balloted its members on the issue. Throughout all the campaigns I remained staunchly opposed to the proposed deal, I don't have to go into the reasons we all know the statistics, it is ultimately a pay cut in a pay rise's clothing. I truly believe we should be dragging the government back to the table and demanding what we are owed by whatever industrial means necessary, and our unions should be fighting harder for us. But as I sat there staring at my phone screen I felt the uneasy weight of all the NHS workers who desperately need this pay rise.
Back in 2017 I shared an interview with Philip Hammond in which a nurse and mother Cheryl phoned in and tried to explain to him the desperate situation the Tory government had put her family in. I could not help but think of Cheryl in that moment, and wonder how life is for her now, how she would be voting in her ballot?
At this time in my life I have the freedom of not having caring responsibilities outside of my work. I am not a parent or a carer, I have no one to consider financially but myself. I trained at a time where I had a bursary and no tuition fees. I have not had to use food banks or take payday loans, I have not had to consider another career in order to survive; to make up my wage to one I can live on I pick up shifts because I have the liberty of time. I am not your average NHS nurse.
It truly brought me deep sadness to know my profession and those I work with have been placed in this position. The proposed 6% is still a pay cut in real terms, it a far cry from what we are actually owed and will do little to address the un-livable wage we are currently being paid. It is a tool to divide NHS staff, to make us feel lonely individuals starring at our phones lost in our decision, separate from each other and disempowered. The way it has been publicised by our unions is abhorrent, they have twisted data for an easy outcome, one where they will not have to face taking industrial action or where staff will not be penalised for their pay rise.
I have some shame in saying I picked up overtime during the doctors strike. I grappled with it for days beforehand and came to the conclusion my colleagues could fight harder in the knowledge that patients were still receiving necessary care. Looking back I think maybe I shouldn't've, I worry that my actions, and those of thousands of workers, did not disrupt the NHS enough for the government to listen. I cannot help but wonder how far we have to go for the Tories to be held accountable for their 8 year destruction of the NHS. I wonder if people need to die for them to start listening, but I am an A&E nurse and after this winter I know that does not make a fucking difference.
Growing up in the south of England I never really had contact with the impact the previous Conservative government had on the UK. I knew they had done terrible things to the north and Scotland, and Wales, and Ireland, but despite the mass working class unemployment of my home town in the 90s it has always been a Tory safe seat. On moving up north to study and now work I saw a different side, but it wasn't my history, I had no connection to the desolation. I guess now I do, I will never forgive the Tories for what they have done to the NHS, to our work force, to my colleagues. The lack of safe working conditions, the exploitation we face in order to survive, the lack of basic human dignity we are offered is unforgivable.
I have always stood by the theory that when voting if your are undecided, vote for those who are not listened to as readily as you are. I have privileges that my colleagues don't, and in that moment of hesitation I had a deeper sense of what this ballot represents. A little heartbroken, voted to reject the deal.
Rxx