Fair Pay for Sodexo Staff in Wythenshawe Hospital!

UNISON to ballot Sodexo members for action in Wythenshawe Hospital after private contractor fail to implement NHS Pay Deal

UNISON is preparing to ballot members for industrial action early in the new year who are working in soft facilities (domestics, porters and catering staff) for Sodexo in Wythenshawe Hospital, after Sodexo failed to provide a timetable for implementation of the NHS Pay Deal for these staff.

Soft FM staff at Wythenshawe are on Agenda for Change contracts, but unlike their colleagues at the Oxford

Road Site, they have not been awarded the 2018 NHS Pay Rise.

UNISON lodged a pay claim on
13th August to request that Sodexo honour the NHS Pay Framework Agreement for all its staff on Agenda for Change terms. The NHS Framework agreement, negotiated by UNISON and other unions, awards staff on Agenda for Change contracts a minimum of a 6.5% pay increase over 3 years, and allows staff on band 1 to be uplifted to band 2.

Balloting for action is not a decision we have taken lightly, but one forced upon us by Sodexo’s failure to treat staff fairly by paying them the same

rate as colleagues employed directly by the NHS and other private contractors who have implemented the deal in full.

Wendy Guest, Branch Secretary Elect, said: “All staff who dedicate their working lives to supporting and working within our NHS, whoever their employer, deserves to be treated fairly. A two-tier postcode lottery on pay depending on where in Manchester someone works is not fair treatment. UNISON will stand by our members in Sodexo at Wythenshawe, and we call on the Trust and Sodexo to sit down with us and discuss how the NHS Framework Agreement can be implemented without further delay.”