Tomorrow (Friday 23 April)  over 200 health workers providing cleaning, catering, portering, transport, security and telephone services in Musgrave Park Hospital will return in-house after 19 years of privisation.

UNISON regional secretary, Patricia McKeown, said “This is the longest and last privatised contract in our health service.  It is the final in-house return of workers who were put through hell to serve political dogma.  They have persevered and justice is theirs at last!”

Background:

In 1991, despite massive trade union and public opposition, health workers in Musgrave Park Hospital became the first causalities of the discredited Thatcherite privatisation programme.

Over 300 workers, 85% of them low paid women workers were sold off, first to Compass, then to Mediguard, then to Mediclean.

Of the original workforce just over 20 remain. 

UNISON has stood with our members, determined that one day they would return to the health service.

Throughout those years we successfully sued the former Eastern Health board for failure to apply TUPE transfer rights to the catering staff, denial of pension rights for the workers and equal pay for the women.

In 1996 the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland investigated this and other contracts and concluded that the women workers had suffered discrimination.

For many years new workers on the contract subsisted on minimum wage levels.   Transferred health workers lost out on pay and conditions.  Standards fell as exploitation rose.

On three separate occasions the Eastern Health Board and the old Greenpark Health Trust could have done the right thing but both shamefully failed to do so.

The first company, Compass lost the contract.  The second company Mediguard caused the contract to collapse in crisis.  The third company Mediclean was awarded the contract without tender, causing Ian Paisley MEP to take action against the UK Government in Europe for breach of the competition rules.

In the last couple of years Mediclean conceded to UNISON negotiators new health service pay rates but by then most of the original workforce had gone.

The remaining original workers have lived through very difficult times but still did their best to deliver to patients and public.

UNISON pays tribute to all our members in the Musgrave Park team. We know their stories and the sacrifices they have made to stick with the health service. We acknowledge the role of the Belfast Trust in recognising their worth.

The Return Home:

To honour them, UNISON activists from across Northern Ireland will be at Musgrave Park Hospital at 10.30am tomorrow to welcome them all back home.

This is the last in-house return, bringing to an end a shameful period in the history of our health service. A new privatisation threat looms from the Tories.   We do not intend to let it happen again.

But for now – we celebrate an outstanding achievement by our members and UNISON.”