Ice sculpture at NHS pay freeze protest

NHS workers will call for an end to the 1% cap on their pay by protesting outside the Scottish Parliament with a giant ice sculpture.

Unison members and activists will invite Health Secretary Shona Robison to their smash the pay freeze campaign event today.

The union has also written to the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB) calling on it to give a commitment that its recommendations on the next pay round for staff will not be bound by the 1% cap on public-sector salaries.

The letter states: “Unison’s 60,000 members working in NHS Scotland are angry because this is the fourth consecutive year the PRB have chosen to endorse the Westminster government’s ‘austerity’ agenda, thereby imposing real-terms pay cuts upon dedicated, hard-working NHS staff and their families.”

Matt McLaughlin, Unison Scotland’s head of health, said: “Unison is Scotland’s largest health union and we see first-hand the impact of the pay cap on health staff.

“NHS staff have suffered a pay cap for the past four years and in that time have seen their take-home pay fall by a massive 14%.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We aim to maintain a good relationship with staff representative bodies in NHS Scotland and have offered to work in partnership to assess the impact of pay restraint, to inform the next round of submissions to the NHS Pay Review Body. We remain open to discussing issues of concern with Unison and others.”