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Almost 200 Airedale Hospital workers to go on strike over pensions

Wednesday, 7 January 2026 15:43

Essential staff at Airedale Hospital will take strike action in a fight for pension equality.

Nearly 200 workers, including porters, domestic, catering and security staff, will walk out for 7 days from 20 January 2026.

The staff, outsourced to AGH Solutions (AGHS) a wholly owned subsidiary of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, have already won improvements to their terms and conditions closer to NHS standards, but issues around pensions remains unresolved.

Joe Wheatley, GMB Union Organiser, said:

"The Chief Executive of Airedale NHS Trust is on £202,000 a year - the director of AGHS is on £184,000 a year.

"Effectively, these well-paid administrators are telling our frontline NHS workers, who are on £24,465 a year, that they don’t care if they can't afford to retire."

“We have ten senior managers at Airedale Trust whose combined salaries would almost cover the cost of uplifting 300 frontline NHS workers onto the NHS pension.

“This dispute is about whether NHS workers retire with dignity or in poverty, we invite the administrators of the Trust and AGHS to answer that question.”

Dennis Kentrop, Managing Director of AGH Solutions Ltd, said:

"We are disappointed that our improved pension offer was rejected by GMB and we were not able to reach an agreement to avoid any disruption to patient care.

"I hope that we can continue to work with the union to resolve this before 20 January. However, should industrial action take place, we will work through our contingency plans and apply lessons learned from the previous rounds of strikes to maintain the services that we provide to Airedale NHS Foundation Trust.'

"

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