UK nurses join other striking workers in two walkouts
Nurses across most of Britain will next month hold the first strikes in their union’s 106-year history, joining a host of other UK workers taking industrial action over pay.
Staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland -- but not Scotland -- will walk out on December 15 and 20, after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union said the government had turned down an offer of negotiations.
It will be the latest industrial action in Britain, where decadeshigh inflation and a cost-of-living crisis have prompted staff in various sectors to demand pay rises to keep up with spiralling prices.
RCN England director Patricia Marquis on Friday apologised to patients who would have operations or treatments cancelled, and said it was about “nurses standing up for themselves but also critically for patients”.
“We are sorry for any disruption that’s caused but actually, unless we do this, we don’t see any prospects of things changing any time soon,” she told Sky News.
The nurses’ strike will be sandwiched between the first of a series of two-day walkouts by national railway workers, while postal service employees will stage fresh stoppages in the run-up to Christmas.
Numerous other public and private sector staff, from lawyers to airport ground personnel, have also held strikes this year.
“Nursing staff have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give our patients the care they deserve,” said RCN head Pat Cullen. The union, which wants a pay rise significantly above inflation, announced earlier this month that a ballot of its more than 300,000 members had found a majority in favour of strikes.
“Ministers have had more than two weeks since we confirmed that our members felt such injustice that they would strike for the first time,” Cullen said, adding that an offer of formal negotiations was declined. “They have the power and the means to stop this by opening serious talks that address our dispute.”
CHALLENGING TIMES
Amid the waves of industrial action, British inflation has continued its recent surge, reaching a 41-year high of 11.1 per cent in October on soaring energy and food bills.
Bosses in the NHS said in September that nurses were skipping meals to feed and clothe their children and struggling to afford rising transport costs.
One in four hospitals had set up foodbanks to support staff, according to NHS Providers, which represents hospital groups in England.