Campaign for a Canteen - victory at Birmingham NHS Blood & Transplant centre
Submitted on Fri, 10/01/2010 - 12:58pm
Workers at Birmingham's NHS Blood & Transplant centre in Edgbaston have just successfully organised to get a hot food canteen through a popular campaign.
Earlier this year office staff moved into former lab space left empty following cuts and closures. This influx highlighted and reminded people just how poor the existing catering on site was. Years ago there had been a full canteen serving cooked breakfast and the like, but the contract was operated by a local hospital and when that ended, no-one was willing to take it on, so the canteen was closed. Since then all that staff have had is over-priced vending machines which supply only salty, fatty and sugary junk food, and are frequently half empty. The dry sandwiches are universally hated. Considering the employer is the NHS, it seemed not a lot of thought had gone into how what employees eat effects our health, fitness, well-being, energy and concentration - especially those who work shifts.
This issue was something that absolutely everybody felt strongly about, so it was decided that instead of grumbling, which achieves nothing, a Campaign for a Canteen would be launched. The UNISON branch agreed to give the campaign its full backing. A petition was circulated and was signed by all, even visiting managers from other centres. An open meeting was also held so that ideas could be brainstormed to go into a written case.
Members of UNISON, Unite, IWW and also non-union members all came up with very strong arguments. The case was put together and presented to management along with pages of signatures, and a right earful from some of the most fired-up staff! Then, once we had made our case, many of us helped to keep the pressure up by sending the regional manager regular individual emails.
In the end management felt that our case was quite simply so strong and logical on all fronts that the only choice they had was to concede to our demand. Now we will be getting a full serving hatch which will give us access to hot fresh food and fruit and veg. This will be a good boost to morale and hopefully to people's health as well. Birmingham blood centre has lost a lot in the past few years and it's about time that we got something back! But this wasn't a gift - the truth is we wouldn't have got it if we hadn't organised.