Tue 20 May
IPO Festival
The Cavern Club, Liverpool
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Alun Parry Blog
Defend the union, health services and Karen Reissmann
I want you to imagine someone for a moment. The person I want you to imagine is a psychiatric nurse, with 25 years experience. I want you to imagine that this person is committed to her job and the patients she helps. She is so committed in fact, that whenever the people she works with face service cuts, she opposes them actively.
Finally, I want you to imagine someone so good at what she does that she is promoted to the role of Senior Practitioner.
That's someone you want in your NHS isn't it? Experienced, expert, committed to her patients.
Well yesterday, on 5th November, she was sacked. I want you to join the campaign to get her reinstated.
Her name is Karen Reissmann, a leading UNISON trade union activist who was employed until yesterday by Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust. She is the Chairperson of the Manchester Community and Health Branch and an elected member of the union's National Health Group Executive.
She was suspended from her job on Friday 19th June due to her trade union activism and her firm opposition to cuts in services. (Or as her bosses put it "enganging in activities which have seriously affected the reputation of the Trust.")
Ironically, this happened on the very day her skills and expertise were recognised with a promotion from Senior Community Nurse to Senior Practitioner.
If you are a trade unionist, you will already see that this is not just an attack on Karen Reissmann, but an attack on the rights of trade unions altogether. When a trade unionist is targeted for trade union activities, it is an attack on us all that should be resisted energetically.
Indeed, many of her colleagues have decided to engage in continuous, indefinite strike action from this Thursday - an action that also deserves our vigorous support.
If you are someone who cares about the NHS, then you'll want patients not to be robbed of dedicated nurses like Karen Reissmann who will not simply work with her patients but defend them from the service cuts imposed upon them.
For both those reasons, Karen Reissmann must be reinstated to her post.
So what can you do about it?
There's lots you can do.
You can send messages of support to Karen at karen@reinstate-karen.org
You can write to Sheila Foley, the Chief Executive of Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust on sheila.foley@mhsc.nhs.uk
You can raise the issue with your own union, or start a petition in your own workplace, or sign the online petition, or help fundraise for the defence fund.
Visit the What You Can Do page of Karen's website to keep in touch with all the various ways you can help out, and to find links to the online petition.
8:49 AM | Permalink
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