PHLEBOTOMISTS at Gloucestershire Hospitals have been on strike since March 17. As of this week, at more than 200 days, that makes it the longest strike in NHS history.

Not that you would really know from the almost complete radio silence from the corporate media.

The strike, organised by my former employer Unison, is of around 40 mainly women workers, who are fighting for fair pay after years of doing work at Band 3 level but paid at Band 2 (£23,615) — the lowest in the NHS.

The Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust has attempted to play hardball and ignored the workers’ demand for pay justice.

Unison believes that the trust, and its chief executive, Kevin McNamara, have been more than happy to keep underpaying these vital NHS workers.

For those that don’t know, phlebotomists are specialist health workers who take and handle patient blood samples. In the interests of full disclosure, I personally rely on these workers where I live to keep me alive.

The need for pay justice was first raised with the trust last year, but after no action from management, the phlebotomists took matters into their own hands — they joined the union in big numbers and took the hardest step for any NHS worker: they went on strike.

I raise this important, and impressive, strike not just to ask you to give as much support as possible, including joining a national solidarity rally in Gloucester on November 17 2025, but also to reflect on why this important dispute and other critical fights for workers and, indeed human rights, have stayed too far under the radar.

Geography is sometimes an issue in giving practical support outside what we might regard as the strongholds of trade unionism. The fact is that it’s far easier to give support in places such as in the major conurbations of London, the West Midlands and perhaps areas of north-west England.

With all due respect, I don’t think anyone would necessarily equate Gloucester and perhaps south-west England as being bastions of trade unionism — even with this being the region from where the iconic Tolpuddle Martyrs came from.

But I want to ask another question — for which I suggest no answers — but is this dispute not getting either the profile or support it deserves because we are talking mainly about women workers?

I know some people will be vexed by me even raising this as a question — in the same way that whenever I suggest that there is inaction in support of black workers. Immediately hackles are raised and people fall into defensive mode.

No need! We just need to make sure that we are providing as much support as we can for these workers who are largely new to trade unionism but clearly get the idea about the power of the collective.

I am also prompted to ask this question because of another group of mainly women workers, again in Unison, who continue to face the most disgusting forms of discrimination that I have ever come across — this time migrant care workers.

I wrote about this back in June when I covered a fringe meeting organised by Unison’s brilliant Staffordshire Community Health branch at the union’s conference.

Back then I reported on the story of how migrant workers were suffering from what can only reasonably be described as slavery — whether it’s very modern or not is, frankly, immaterial.

Basically the “right” for these mainly women workers is largely based on their visa status.

For many of these workers having the audacity to complain about any ill treatment could mean the employer revoking their visa status and them being forced to leave the country.

Sexual exploitation and harassment are an all too common experience for far too many women at work, whether migrant or not.

But none of this, with the exception of the Morning Star, ever really gets near newspapers, never mind anywhere near the front pages.

But neither do these stories appear to me to get anywhere near the priority that they deserve from across the trade union movement.

Clearly there have been some very high-profile incidents of disgraceful behaviour by some men union leaders in recent times. That may have contributed to this.

But, again, I ask that we all — but of course I direct this mainly at men — ask ourselves the question: are we doing more than paying lip service to the appalling treatment being experienced by far too many women workers?

In common with the Gloucester strike, the migrant care workers are not sitting around waiting for a knight in shining armour to come to their rescue. The sisters are doing it for themselves!

More than 400 migrant care workers have already signed up for a massive lobby of Parliament on December 17 to demand much more than their rights as workers but also their right to be treated as human beings.

I write this as a child of migrant workers. In those days, the 1960s, from what my parents told me they were called pretty much everything but migrants. But many of the issues they faced of direct as well as systemic discrimination with seemingly little support in highlighting the issues are largely the same.

Sure, at least here we have the country’s largest union taking this issue up as some other unions have done. Not surprising at least in Unison’s case as way more than three-quarters of its membership, over 980,000, are women.

But outside of Unison, where such a high female membership is less common, I must admit that I worry whether enough is being done.

A quick glance through the motions carried at the TUC Women’s Conference earlier this year tells me that I am right to be concerned, or at least to increase my levels of vigilance, and call for us all to do the same.

We can never get into a situation where strikes carried out by men get more attention than those by women.

When I worked for Unison, I remember having my organising team work alongside the North West region on a dispute of NHS workers working for one of the far too many private contractors in the service.

Those relatively few mainly women workers went on strike and won a massive pay increase of — if I remember correctly — around 17 per cent. I don’t remember mass pickets of support but perhaps, in fairness, it was more difficult to organise than it is today.

I suppose all I am asking for here is a bit of an honesty check and a plea for more solidarity. Firstly, is there any more that we can do to amplify the voices and the heroic dispute that is being waged by the phlebotomists in Gloucester?

Secondly, how many people can we get over to Gloucester on November 17 to show solidarity?

We need to make sure that these workers win and can go back to providing the vital service that they want to provide at a wage that actually reflects their worth.