BRIGHTON (Reuters), Sep 12 - Up to 1,000 National Health Service (NHS) supply workers plan to strike against privatization in the U.K.'s health service, the country's largest union Unison said on Monday.
Nearly 1,000 workers in NHS Logistics voted by 74% to take industrial action over the outsourcing of contracts to German company DHL -- the first nationwide strike in the NHS since 1988, Unison added.
NHS Logistics deal with the delivery of vaccines, bandages, syringes, food, drink, uniforms, and other equipment to surgeries and hospitals.
A strike timetable will be decided on Friday and, when it begins, the action is expected to have an immediate impact on supplies.
"These are not trouble-makers, not hard-liners but workers who care deeply about the NHS," Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said of the strikers.
"(They are) hard-working public service workers who have never ever taken strike action before, making a stand to protect their service and protect our NHS," Prentis told delegates at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton.
"If DHL take over the contract, it will turn the clock back 20 years," Prentis said. "Hospitals will need huge storage areas to cope with bulk buying."
Unions and medical staff associations have also launched NHS Together, a joint campaign against what they call creeping privatization in health care that they fear will put patients at risk and waste money.
The group will lobby parliament in the autumn and has scheduled a national demonstration for early next year.
"I think the government would underestimate at its peril quite how precious to the public is the health service," said TUC head Brendan Barber, speaking on the fringe of the conference.
Britain's biggest civil service union, the PCS, said on the eve of the conference it could repeat its 2004 national strike unless the government rethought its reform agenda.
"There will be demonstrators outside every hospital, school, job center, and every public sector building," PCS chief Mark Serwotka told delegates, asking for backing if the union moved to strike within the next few weeks.
By Matt Falloon
Last Updated: 2006-09-11 15:50:48 -0400 (Reuters Health)
Related Reading
U.K. hospitals could close under NHS reforms, August 18, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
