The Work by Cabal

 

My good friend and EP&DBHP "CABAL" has put ink to parchment again; this time his article is simply called The Work. It was originally written in 2009 after just two years of service, and fifteen years is a long time in hospital portering, in fact it is in anything; and his opinions have changed. He has republished this for St Theo's Day 2024. I remember him when he first joined us. CABAL had previously been assigned to a hotel in North Oxford and so had no experience of HPing or any other kind of healthcare work. He was put into it by an employment agency, the most common way anybody gets into HPing these days. I am against agencies for anything other than small scale temporary work. It is the old adage that conscripts make bad soldiers. An agency employee is literally thrust into anything and everything whether he or she likes it or not. Why should they feel any commitment or loyalty to their "placement"? It's not something they have any contractual relationship with or have any incentive to become attached to. They are less likely to bond emotionally with their colleagues or take action to gain better pay and conditions. A few decades ago agencies made up about ten thousand workers nationally. Today that figure is nine times as much. The justification is that any HP who impresses management can be offered a contract at their discretion, but some porters have been waiting years. I'm all in favour of a trial period for new employees; you should have to prove you've got what it takes to be a HP, but not for an indefinite length of time. State employers also have no incentive to favour good workers, and as I've said many times before; they strangely seem to want the opposite for some reason, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2019/05/sarah-kuteh-loses-appeal.html.
 
CABAL describes his first day in HPing and how it feels so transient and unique, before the familiarity of experience kicks in. I felt exactly the same when I started in 1988. His experience also totally gels with mine and he has also read Hard Work by Polly Toynbee, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/05/hard-work-by-polly-toynbee.html. CABAL then brings up a thorny subject, internal racism. HPing in the present day, like all low paid and low conventional status jobs in Britain, is done primarily by recent immigrants. The JRH lodge was filled with people from all over the world, but there were significant numbers in particular from the Philippines, Eastern Europe, the Indian subcontinent and Africa. A lot of us felt that the Filipinos especially practiced a form of national nepotism. I don't really mean that as a criticism; perhaps it is just human nature. We are naturally a tribal species after all. Many of the native porters felt they were being discriminated against in this situation. That demographic of course includes myself; but, whether it was justified or not, I never experienced that emotion personally. I found that my loyalty to my EP&DB&SP's drowned out any sense of resentment I might have otherwise felt. This is difficult for me to write about because I know CABAL and we're good friends. He is from Poland and his life has therefore been shaped by the current government immigration policy. I bear him no ill will personally and felt happy serving alongside him, as I did many other of my brother porters from around the globe. I understand why so many people want to come and live in this country, even risking their lives crossing the English Channel in totally inadequate craft. Wouldn't I do the same in their shoes? I once spoke to a young woman in sterile supplies. She was Hungarian and her mother back home in Hungary did the same job at a large hospital in Budapest. The mother earns less in a month than her daughter does in a week! However, detaching emotions and elements of my personal life and taking a step back... I oppose government immigration policy. Most native British people do. I know many people who are not racially native but have been born here who agree with me. CABAL is right that one of the reasons for this quandary is because many natives in the UK are essentially priced out of the job market. For some of us, especially if we have large families, it is actually more lucrative to remain unemployed than join the "precariat". The cost of labour has dropped so low it is just not worth working. My solution would be to find a way to raise the cost of labour and therefore enrich the activity of employment. Mass immigration is just keeping a leaking bucket full; the government is not plugging the leaks. I would include making work more pleasant and fun as well as a way to make more money; which is really what the HPWA is all about. There is a lot more CABAL could have said and he ends his article with a summary. Again, these are issues I totally understand and have covered extensively. I think we both feel inspired by the words of Polly Toynbee, that HPing has the potential to be a wonderful occupation in every way. Doing it is very important because it is an essential element of a team on which millions of people's lives depend. Why is it not? Can't we make it so? Source: https://dreamingspireart.wordpress.com/2024/06/01/the-work-an-essay-2009/.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/04/cabal-on-breathtaking.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/cabal-on-paper-mask.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/05/cabal-on-nurses-day.html.