‘I have no choice’: Staff at four mental health hospitals vote to strike

More than 170 workers across four mental health hospitals have pledged to walk out unless issues over their pay are addressed.

Cleaning and catering staff at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) voted overwhelmingly to go on strike on an undecided date in April.

The staff are outsourced by the trust and are employed by ISS, a services company. Some are paid just £10.84 per hour.

The workers are demanding an increase to £14.43 per hour, in line with the in-house NHS staff in the same positions.

One of the workers, Lume Osmaj, 48, of Baizdon Road in Blackheath, said she has been a supervisor at the hospital for nearly 16 years, but has never been offered a pay rise. She is hoping for her pay to increase to £16 per hour.

“I feel very low,” she said. I wake up in the morning, sit on the edge of the bed and say ‘where the hell am I going?’

“But I have bills to pay. I have no choice. I have a family to look after.”

Ms Osmaj said she was taken to A&E two weeks ago because her blood pressure level was unstable from stress.

“It’s affecting my mental and physical health,” she said.

“I have three kids. They rely on me. Prices for everything have increased. I have a mortgage to pay, my daughter’s at university.

“We worked through Covid and didn’t get a penny, nobody thanked us. I caught Covid on the ward. We want them to offer us what we deserve.”

SLaM specialises in mental health, with more than 100 community sites and 300 clinical teams at the four psychiatric hospitals.

Helen O’Connor, an organiser for the GMB union, which arranged the strike ballot, said: “Our members, who do vital work for SLaM, have had enough of eking out a miserable existence on poverty pay while juggling impossible workloads.

“They are struggling to feed themselves and their families. The anger is palpable among the workers, who just want to be treated fairly.

“GMB members are also concerned that ISS is cutting hours and replacing permanent staff with agency workers.

“This means that the cleaning and catering in the trust is being compromised and this is having an adverse effect on standards for patients and visitors to the sites.”

A spokesman for SLaM said: “Our staff are our greatest asset, and we know that staff who feel supported at work provide the best care for our patients and the people who use our services.

“We want our staff to be able to support themselves and their families and afford the costs of living in London.

“We are proud to be a London Living Wage employer and are committed to ensuring everyone either working directly for us or our contracted service suppliers are paid fairly.

“We are working closely with ISS and GMB and hope they can resolve their dispute without the need to take industrial action.”

An ISS spokesman said: “We are disappointed in the result of the ballot, despite our commitment to paying in line with NHS and London Living Wage rates once these are agreed between unions and the NHS.

“ISS remains in a constructive dialogue with the GMB union regarding employees at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and we are working towards a resolution.”

Pictured top: Lume Osmaj will go on strike if pay demands are not met (Picture: Lume Osmaj)