Health workers in East Suffolk and North Essex launch strike appeal

On Monday 25 November, cleaners, porters, housekeepers and other facilities staff started three weeks’ worth of strike action to keep their jobs in the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT).

The dispute comes after the trust wrote to staff in April to tell them their jobs could be outsourced. In May, the chief executive of the trust, Nick Hulme, was filmed telling workers lobbying a board meeting that the decision to outsource had already been made.

Staff fear the sell-off will threaten their pay and conditions and pose a serious risk to patient safety.

As an example, outsourced staff in Ipswich get fewer days of annual leave and less sick pay than their colleagues directly employed by the NHS. They also missed out on the extra one-off payment of £1,655 that NHS staff received in the last financial year.

Now, more than 350 workers, employed at Colchester Hospital, Aldeburgh Hospital and several other ESNEFT community sites have walked out until Friday 13 December – or until the trust abandons plans to outsource their jobs.

They had already taken more than 20 days of strikes and ahead of this week’s strikes, staff had to hold a second ballot to renew their legal mandate to take industrial action. Workers again voted 99% in favour of strikes in results announced on Friday (22 November).

To support the strikers you can donate to their strike fund (details below) and you can also:

Sign the petition

Write to the board