Winning a band uplift and back pay for more than 500 band 2 health care support workers is one of them. I’ve been chair of staff side at North Tees and Hartlepool for a long time. We’d been pushing for this since 2021 when a letter first arrived from the government about it. We just didn’t drop it; we felt really passionately that it was only right to pay support workers fairly for the work they were doing.
The trust was really quite quick in agreeing to work with staff side and initially we formed a managers and trade union representatives group and looked at people who’ve been with the trust for more than five years and under five years, examining how their roles had developed. Then last January (2023) we set up a working group of job evaluators, and specifically worked on the health care support worker role in different areas. We got a lot done and were really quite excited.
Staff side work well as a team. I’m the staff side chair and we just kept pushing job evaluation. This is our members’ money – and they should be paid for their experience, skills and the job they’re performing. Eventually after a lot of work and persuasion management said they’d take it to the board. The issue of backpay went to the trust board and for us it was always going to be from July 2021, when the government sent their letter on the issue. The board agreed and it made my day! We wore them down in the end!
I was absolutely delighted that this was something that happened on my watch as I only have a year left before retirement – I’m retiring at the end of February 2025. It’s come to a good conclusion, which has brought me joy.
I’d advise other reps that this has to be done as a team. We all worked together: a workforce lead, a job evaluation expert and staff side staff side reps. Inevitably there are some band twos that will stay as band twos as that’s the level of the job they do, but there were so many who have been uplifted.
I’ve already had a rep asking for advice on how we did it. HCAs deserve to be paid for what they actually do and for how long they’ve done it for. There is no doubt that this could have a knock-on effect following our win for some of our lowest-paid members. I feel proud of that.
If you’d like to get involved with the RCN, have a look at the various options available to you here and go for it. You won't regret it.
The trust was really quite quick in agreeing to work with staff side and initially we formed a managers and trade union representatives group and looked at people who’ve been with the trust for more than five years and under five years, examining how their roles had developed. Then last January (2023) we set up a working group of job evaluators, and specifically worked on the health care support worker role in different areas. We got a lot done and were really quite excited.
Staff side work well as a team. I’m the staff side chair and we just kept pushing job evaluation. This is our members’ money – and they should be paid for their experience, skills and the job they’re performing. Eventually after a lot of work and persuasion management said they’d take it to the board. The issue of backpay went to the trust board and for us it was always going to be from July 2021, when the government sent their letter on the issue. The board agreed and it made my day! We wore them down in the end!
I was absolutely delighted that this was something that happened on my watch as I only have a year left before retirement – I’m retiring at the end of February 2025. It’s come to a good conclusion, which has brought me joy.
I’d advise other reps that this has to be done as a team. We all worked together: a workforce lead, a job evaluation expert and staff side staff side reps. Inevitably there are some band twos that will stay as band twos as that’s the level of the job they do, but there were so many who have been uplifted.
I’ve already had a rep asking for advice on how we did it. HCAs deserve to be paid for what they actually do and for how long they’ve done it for. There is no doubt that this could have a knock-on effect following our win for some of our lowest-paid members. I feel proud of that.
If you’d like to get involved with the RCN, have a look at the various options available to you here and go for it. You won't regret it.
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