THIS week, Unison held its annual health conference in Brighton. Hot on the agenda was this year’s once again delayed pay offer. Also discussed was the need to reject Tory proposals for separate nursing pay spines.

A tactic that has already caused major uproar nationwide, Unison joined our sister healthcare unions in slamming this proposal.
 
The Department for Health and Social Care recently launched a consultation to “consider the benefits and challenges of a separate pay spine for nursing staff.”
 
The consultation put forward two options, one keeping nurses on the Agenda for Change job evaluation system, but giving them a different pay spine and the second where nursing staff would be given an entirely different and separate set of terms, conditions and pay and bargaining structures.
 
As Britain’s largest healthcare union, it is vital that Unison is leading from the front on this issue. This was echoed by members who spoke against the proposal discussed in the emergency motion called “Divided we fall — invest in Agenda for Change, don’t destroy it.”
 
2022 saw the government successfully use these divide-and-rule tactics to scupper mass healthcare strikes on pay by playing unions off against each other. Many, including myself, stood up at the Unison national delegate conference and demanded that we as a union do better to combat this in future.
 
If the past week had shown us anything, it is that the future is now and the time to organise is now.
 
At a time of great crisis in the NHS, this proposal brings nothing to the table but infighting among workers — the perfect distraction while the government stalls on pay talks. Their plan is to also cause conflict within the trade union movement, some of this already evident. Healthcare workers must remain firm in opposition to this.
 
Iain Mooney is an NHS nurse and assistant branch secretary of Unison Cumbria and North Lancashire. He writes here in a personal capacity.