Barts Hospital Workers Strike The cleaners, porters and other SERCO workers at Barts Health, including Whipps Cross Hospital, are involved in an historic dispute. They are striking again this week to improve working conditions and to get a pay rise from £9.70 to £10 an hour. The next round of strike days begins on Tuesday July 11th and runs until Tuesday July 18th at 6am Solidarity demo Unite the Union demonstration Saturday 15 July, 12 noon, the Royal London (Whitechapel) to Mile End hospital Meet on Turner Street, E1 2AD. The branch banner will be on the demonstration, please join us if you can.   Statement from UNITE: We the cleaners, porters, and security who are members of Unite the Union at the St Barts NHS Trust are going on strike to defend our jobs and the integrity of our work. Since December 2016 – ‘soft services’ (catering, cleaning, security and portering) SERCO has been given the privatised contract so we work for the private sector not the NHS. This is a deal that will cost taxpayers £600m and lead to Serco making large profits from our hard work. Since Serco have taken over they have: 1) Planned job cuts at Whipps Cross Hospital. 2) Attempted to abolish tea breaks for hard-pressed workers at the Royal London Hospital. 3) Increased the workload to unsustainable levels affecting workers physical and mental well-being. 4) Continued zero-hours contracts despite a commitment not to. Serco profits from our NHS. Their CEO alone earns almost £2m a year. A cleaner would have to work for almost 100 years to receive this sum. Unite members have called for: 1) A pay rise of a 30p per hour to cover rising costs in London. 2) An end to proposed job cuts. 3) An end of an ever increasing workload that is affecting our health. Serco have refused to listen. We have now been forced into taking industrial action. From the 4th of July we will be on strike. This is a last resort for us and we hope that both Serco and the Barts NHS Trust do the right thing.