I have done my workings on the NHS pay deal and I am completely baffled that any union would accept what is on offer.
First, my workings:
My inflation assumptions are realistic and based on facts.
Then I am assuming we have someone on £30,000 at the start of 2021 who got the 3% pay deal in that year. This is what the NHS offered. Base pay rises to £30,900, which is £600 less than inflation required.
Then I allow for a 4% pay offer in 2022 plus a 6% bonus - which is what is now on the table and which most unions are recommending to their members. This increases pay to £33,737 that year but base pay to only £31,827.
Then I allow for a 5% pay settlement in 2023, which I gather is what has been offered.
After that I add a 1% pay rise for each of the following years - because that is what the budget says the government will permit.
Now, look at what that means. In every year, and even in 2022 when the bonus is effectively being paid the impact is to pay less than is actually required to cover cumulative inflation.
It could, though, be argued that the shortfall to the end of 2022 is not too bad: most workers are around 3% down now, at least. It is from 2023 onwards that things go very wrong.
The 2023 offer of a 5% pay rise sounds good, but it is being made on pay that ignores the 2022 bonus. As a result, the offer is now 6.4% below that is needed to match inflation. And thereafter nothing changes: the 6.4% loss is built in because the bonus is never indexed.
I am staggered that this deal is being proposed by unions. It sells their members horribly short. It builds in austerity. And it leaves the NHS with a continuing pay, retention and recruitment crisis that will crush its ability to meet the needs of the people of this country.
My recommendation to NHS staff is very clear. If the deal is anything like this then reject what is on offer.
And I also suggest that they ask anyone recommending it to show their workings, as I have done, and over the time period I have used and not just last year and this year because they produce a deeply misleading result. It's the least they need to do.
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Well, you know what the next question is going to be surely?
How are they going to pay for it?
It’s already been asked. Moronic. I don’t understand what is so difficult about this. But many pundits and politicians seem wedded, effectively, to the mainstream neoliberal view.
Well, actually, it was ‘Have you told the unions yet?’ but your answer is perfectly valid.
The government will pay for it with money. They always do. And they create the money.
This settlement should buy peace until April 2024, and then we get this battle again. Is the government going to agree another 5% pay increase then, or will we have more NHS strikes in the run up to a general election? (It rather suggests they think the election will be in early to mid 2024, before the wheels fall off.)
Agreed am just as stunned at the sell out. Do Union negotiators understand inflation ? seems staggering if they do not. And judging from the weasel words from Government so far this will not be fully funded but come out of the NHS existing budget. A truly awful deal.
I’m guessing they think that they are losing public support / losing staff commitment? Dreadful outcome.
When I heard this deal I presumed I was missing something…… it appears not.
I wonder how workers will vote on the deal?
Unions have to be pragmatic. Many of their members have already lost more, through not being paid for strike days, than the proposed ‘bonus’. Strikes can only take place with the support of the members, and that support wears thin over a long campaign, paricularly among ordinary members as opposed to the activists who appear on television. I would suggest that is why the government refused to negotiate for so long. I believe UNITE is recommending rejection, but it will be interesting to see the numbers in the ballot.
As a former trade union negotiator (a senior rep for 20 years) I could not believe my ears when I heard on the news last night that the unions were recommending acceptance of such an offer. They have obviously been suckered by the belief that there is “limited money to go round”. Perhaps they also think that because inflation is falling that prices will be coming down too…..it beggars belief. What are trade unions teaching their activists?
Unite have said no
I have no idea what the rest5 are thinking
My model will not be perfect biut it’s also probably close to the truth
This is ridiculous
Like Jim Osborne (above) i was a trades union officer (UCU branch secretary and Chair) for years and active in the union and the NUT before that for decades – so I am less surprised, sadly, that this poor deal is being recommended. At the end of the day Union full-timers exist to broker deals, not to fight as such. The exceptions like Lynch and Graham are – well, exceptional. Serwotka is good too. But in my own union and workplace I have known offers to settle a dispute by the Union full-time regional rep which were far less than I could get (mostly I overruled the union full-timers and even in a right wing college I was backed by the members – I did get more). Nevertheless the unions often still exist to do deals, make compromises and will settle as soon as possible if there is not a layer of union reps and activists to insist on fighting on. This is hard, there’s no way round it, but it has to be done. I sincerely hope the members will reject this desperately poor offer. Better can be achieved; the govt is stepping backwards and will give more.
I don’t think it is the activists who are recommending this offer. The negotiators will be senior union officials. As a trade union official I often had to recommend a proposal as the best that can be achieved through negotiation – accept this or take strike action. I see this as a similar situation – capitulation because there is no real alternative.
Is there a reason unions don’t increase their demands by a small lump sum for every day they are on strike?
Then talks dragging on would hurt the government as well as the union members, and would help protect against gov trying to starve out the members.
They could, but there would be no reason for the government to agree
Sunak’s idea of a ‘high wage economy ‘?
Yes….
Presumably they have only accepted the 2022 and 2023 deal and not subsequent years. Can see why they would accept for 2022 – only 0.7% down vs 2021 – but why would they accept a reduction on actual total pay between 2022 and 2023?
Have they misunderstood an almost 1.0% reduction 2022-23 presented as a 5% increase? A 3% increase over total pay in 2022 would match inflation. Were they worried it sounded worse than the ‘5%’ they are selling to their members?
I am bemused by their consent
It just makes no sense
This is pure political calculation.
The Tories know it’s a bad deal as I suspect do the Unions however the Tories also know that those on strike are very unlikely to be Tory voters so anything they do in relation to the strikes is entirely for some other reason.
The Unions rejecting the bad offer can now be painted as totally unreasonable which will land well with actual Tory voters and up the ‘them and us’ rhetoric that they are using to try and win (or not badly lose) the next election. Even better if some unions accept the offer while others don’t.
Out of interest does anyone know how many do these pay deals actually play as promised when agreed?
Personally if I was a Tory minister and I’d just do a bit of hardball to play the game, cave in to show I listen and I care, and renege at the first opportunity due to “events”.
Sadly, I am not surprised. During the 2018 negotiations into ending the 1% pay cap, I found my union offered misleading advice (intentionally or not, I’m not sure) mainly about how the ‘pay rise’ (real terms pay cut) would interact with the Agenda For Change increments. I know many people (myself included) who felt let down by the unions pushing that deal: the workforce got burned and the govt got good headlines (it also, I feel, delayed the larger industrial action we’re seeing now, which was fermenting within the workforce at the time.)
I have since left the NHS but will pass your workings onto everyone I can. Thank you.
Am I missing something?
It seems to me the stealth taxes with the personal allowance not rising will also hit people hard.
The increase in the income tax bill is equivalent to raising the basic rate by 4p, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Even the Tory press seem to have noticed this one.
An extra 3.2 million people will pay income tax who would be exempt if the thresholds rose in line with inflation, while 2.1 million people will be dragged into the 40p higher rate and another 350,000 will pay the top 45p rate.
This is going to hit many NHS workers. That 5% won’t go far.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/budget-2023-stealth-4p-rise-in-income-tax-to-pile-pressure-on-rishi-sunak-over-squeezed-workers/ar-AA18GaCn
Like you I am surprised the unions agreed to this. In real terms they are not getting 5%.
That 5% pay
My daughter is voting no. However almost none of her friends are, simply because they are quitting – one to Aus, one to Saudi, and another going into some business for a much higher salary. The only thing keeping her from nursing abroad is her young son, who’ll have to be further looked after by ‘free child care nan’. This is a double whammy for those dependent on childcare, even if not working actual 12-14 hour shifts, which many have to do thanks to gross shortages of specially trained staff.
Since 2010 the value of nurses’ wages has fallen 20%. They’d need 25% to restore it.
Coincidentally, MPs have had a 28% increase in the same time.
If it’s good enough MPs, it is good enough for the nurses.
The cost to the taxpayer is nothing financially, because taxes do not pay for government spending.
Without the pay rise, the cost to the people is devastating as the NHS is decimated.
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes have siphoned £250-billion from public services into private hands.
Read: How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps by Dr Youssef El-Gingihy
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Dismantle-Easy-Steps-second/dp/1789041783/
Watch: The Great NHS Heist https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thegreatnhsheist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro-oU0u8Jos
Remember that people fall ill every day. Every day nurses are on strike they lose a day’s pay. But they still have to treat the same total number of people. Another effective pay cut. How long can they afford to go on?
what is the best source of historic annual interest rates and predicted future rates – trying to produce some simple illustrations for a union meeting
Bank of England and forecasts I note in the report