A major fight against NHS privatisation is ­brewing in the south west of England. It's one that will have implications for thousands of the lowest paid hospital workers across the country.

It could also mark the beginning of a fight between health unions and the Labour government that their ­leaders usually support.

Health bosses at Dorset HealthCare NHS, Dorset County Hospital and University Hospitals Dorset want to transfer staff, including porters, cleaners and catering workers, to a wholly owned subsidiary.

They insist that the move to "SubCos" is only about lowering the trusts' tax bills, and that staff pay and ­conditions will be untouched.

But workers in the Unison union know better. This week they began a formal strike ballot.

Dorset health union ­activists say the mood to fight back is strong and spreading, with large union meetings and groups being formed.

It's no wonder that workers are angry. Outsourced staff often have lower pay and worse conditions than those employed directly by the NHS. They are less likely to have access to the same NHS pensions.

Transferred workers often keep their old terms and conditions for a period, but new workers come in on worse contracts. It creates the ideal environment for divide and rule policies.

That's why health bosses across Britain will be ­watching carefully to see if Dorset health trusts get away with it. They too would love to drive down wages and weaken unions.

For Unison's leaders, including general secretary Christina McAnea, the bosses' offensive is something of an embarrassment.

They have spent years telling their members that a future Labour government would defend workers and stop NHS privatisation.

Before the election, Unison tops promoted Labour's promise to "bring about the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation".

At this year's Unison health conference, McAnea insisted that, whatever the government's failings, its pro-worker agenda remained intact.

But SubCos and other retreats reveal that to be a nonsense. So now McAnea feigns fury.

"The government can't hide behind NHS England. These decisions are being taken on this government's watch," she told delegates to the TUC union federation conference this week.

"The NHS needs to be rebuilt, not dismantled and parcelled off to the lowest bidder."

No health worker worried about their job should trust Unison's leadership not to do a shoddy deal with the ­government.

Instead, they should, like the workers in Dorset, prepare to fight any health boss that attempts to push through a SubCo plan of their own.

Around 150 porters, ­domestics, caterers and ­security workers in Airedale, West Yorkshire, began a three-day strike on Monday.

The GMB union ­members have been outsourced to a wholly-owned subsidiary called AGH Solutions on far worse conditions than staff employed directly by the NHS.

They say they feel like second class citizens.

Striker Bradley told ­Socialist Worker that his pay and conditions were ­rapidly ­falling behind those of directly employed ­hospital workers. He said it now doesn't even last him till the end of the month.

"I've been working here for about two and a half years, shortly after the AGH was set up," he said. "I'm out on strike because I want ­everything to be made fair in this increasingly unfair world of work."

Bradley said that the ­difference between NHS Agenda For Change and AGH terms and conditions was "growing all the time".

That's not only obvious when it comes to pay, it also affects holiday pay, sick pay and pensions.

Some 300 cleaners, porters and caterers in south London plan to lobby bosses at a board meeting next week.

The UVW union members last month voted to strike for pay and conditions equal to those on the Agenda for Change NHS contract.

If the board does not vote for equality, the union says it will name strike dates.

Hundreds of pathology workers in London struck for three days last week.

The laboratory workers, employed by Health Services Laboratory (HSL) and The Doctors Laboratory, are fighting over different pay rates for people doing the same job.

The Unite union members provide 70 percent of diagnostic work across seven London hospitals.

They picketed outside all the hospitals and, last Thursday, hundreds of strikers marched to the steps of University College Hospital.

At the rally, strikers' chants targeted bosses over provision of free meals to those breaking the strike. They shouted, "We don't want your pizza, we don't want your cake -- give us fair pay now, we know how much you make!".

A representative from the IWGB union told the strikers that HSL couriers could soon join them on strike.

Alan Kenny

Elsewhere, 1,000 healthcare assistants (HCAs) at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust are set to receive £4,000 in back pay.

They have been rebanded from band 2 to band 3 of the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale after a six-month campaign.