\n<\/p>\n
Hundreds of low-paid NHS hospital workers are celebrating victory after bosses agreed to improve their terms and conditions following the threat of strike action.<\/p>\n
More than 330 workers, mainly cleaners, caterers and porters, known as facilities staff, at St George\u2019s, Epsom and St Helier hospital group (GESH) \u2013 98% of those balloted \u2013 voted for strike action.<\/p>\n
Cleaners, caterers and porters were brought in-house four years ago as NHS employees but were denied the same conditions as many other NHS workers, losing millions in pay and other entitlements over the years.<\/p>\n
The workers said they had been systematically excluded from the NHS\u2019s Agenda for Change (AfC) terms and were prepared to strike unless GESH granted them full AfC contracts.<\/p>\n
Strike action was averted after a board vote on 6 November approved proposals to implement full AfC contracts.<\/p>\n
A report from their union, United Voices of the World (UVW), accused the group of \u201cinstitutional racism\u201d because of differential pay and conditions for these in-house NHS workers, who are mostly from minority ethnic communities. According to the report, \u00a332m had been lost in pay and benefits and \u00a36m in withheld pensions.<\/p>\n
It said the facilities staff were entitled to a maximum of \u00a313.85 an hour, while other NHS workers at the hospital group received a minimum rate of \u00a314.92 an hour.<\/p>\n
Holiday entitlement is also less for the facilities employees, who get 24 days\u2019 holiday with no increase depending on their length of service, unlike other colleagues who receive up to 33 days plus bank holidays. Employer pension contributions are 3%, compared with 23.7% for other NHS workers.<\/p>\n
Pujan Sherpa, a cleaner for nine years at St Helier hospital and a UVW member, welcomed the deal. She said: \u201cI\u2019m very happy about the new contract. Now we have a pay rise, NHS holidays, NHS pensions. They will finally pay us better for working weekends, for example, which I do. Having more money in our pockets will have a big impact on our family life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petros Elia, the UVW general secretary, said: \u201cThis deal was not handed to these workers \u2014 it was extracted through their unity, courage, and the threat of strike action. After years of being ignored, underpaid and treated worse than second class, they forced the trust to treat them as equals. This victory is a testament to the power of workers standing together. They are true NHS heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n
Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n
Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS trust said:\u201cWe are proud of the diversity of our workforce and our board has taken decisive action to end an historical arrangement that left some of our people paid different rates for doing similar work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will now consult with our porters, cleaners, catering and patient transport colleagues on our proposals to move towards NHS Agenda for Change, with a pay rise of more than \u00a32,000 and increased annual leave starting from April 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hundreds of low-paid NHS hospital workers are celebrating victory after bosses agreed to improve their terms and conditions following the threat of strike action. More than 330 workers, mainly cleaners, caterers and porters, known as facilities staff, at St George\u2019s, Epsom and St Helier hospital group (GESH) \u2013 98% of those balloted \u2013 voted for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[578,178,2160,2747,19422,1229,2161,1349,5427,1162,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-34039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-hospital","9":"tag-hospitals","10":"tag-hundreds","11":"tag-improved","12":"tag-lowpaid","13":"tag-nhs","14":"tag-staff","15":"tag-strike","16":"tag-terms","17":"tag-threat","18":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}