News of another strike

Company news

Aug 19, 2014

Care UK has today been formally informed that Unison is to hold further industrial action in the service for adults with learning disabilities in Doncaster for a period of three weeks starting next Monday (25th).  

This follows reports in the media made within hours of returning to work from the previous strike that Unison was planning further action.

A Care UK spokesperson said:  

“We believe that another strike is both unnecessary and irresponsible.  The strike has only been supported by 15% of the workforce in the Doncaster service.  Those colleagues transferring to Care UK from the previous provider have maintained their pay rates at around 50% higher than care workers in comparable services. Their demand for a further pay increase of up to 10% is simply unaffordable when the council has to make savings of more than £100 million. No health or social care service is able to make pay increases on this scale at the present time.

Care UK’s approach in Doncaster has protected all the jobs within the service at a time when it has been necessary to cut over a 1,000 jobs within other council services in the city. Care UK has also protected NHS final salary pension rights and future pay increments and made a transitional payment equivalent to 14 months difference in earnings to those who transferred from the previous provider.

Our service has continued to provide an improving quality of support throughout the industrial action taken by a small number of activists and we are confident that we will continue to operate the same high quality service during any future strike action.”