Unite to demonstrate over health and care worker concerns

Unite will be holding a demonstration at 5pm today on behalf of its members in the health and care sector.

Unite said the demonstration was called due to “the frustration of shop stewards and members across a range of issues including the lack of meaningful progress on issues and claims, both individual and collective, issues of political overreach, staff shortages and unfilled vacancies, including the continuing proliferation of agency workers often covering long term, permanent vacancies.”

The union also cited what it described as a “lack of an independent human resources and industrial relations framework for health and care”, concerns around the willingness of employees to speak out on key issues due to the “fear of repercussions and a lack of transparency” in respect of internal job advertising and appointment processes.  

“We have seen a heightened level of activity around Unite issues in health and care across the last two weeks with undeniable progress made including a three and a half hour meeting with the minister, plus senior officials from the Gibraltar Government and the GHA last week to really tackle outstanding matters,” said Bochra Lasfar, Unite’s Regional Officer.

“However the scale of the outstanding issues means that we still have significant progress to make from a dispute resolution perspective.”

“Members have reported, notwithstanding the steps forward made, that the progress does not go far enough and they wish to express their frustrations with a sector-wide demonstration, this position was fully supported by a unanimous vote of members at the Health & Care Branch meeting last week.”

“The concerns being expressed by our members are across a wide range of issues including staff shortages, unfilled vacancies, misuse of agency labour, a fear of speaking out and political overreach.”

“We are urging members, friends and family to join the demonstration to support the industrial agenda of Unite within the Health & Care Sector for the betterment of workers and service users.”

“We hope that this demonstration will act as a major reset and then this wide-ranging agenda can be tackled with purpose and vigour”.

The demonstration will set off from Transport House at 5pm with members being asked to gather from 4.45pm.

The demonstration will then march on No.6 Convent Place to highlight the concerns of members working in this critical sector.