Unions threaten to wreak Christmas chaos
Union under fire for ‘odd’ ballot process which could lead to the postponement of thousands of operations
UNIONS are planning co-ordinated strike action in the run-up to Christmas and warn that the country will “grind to a halt”.
The UK’S biggest union for civil servants has voted in favour of a walkout and threatened to conspire with other bodies to inflict maximum chaos.
The move comes as the Government prepares to face down demands over public sector pay and tries to cover a £35million “fiscal black hole”.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has demanded a 17.6 per cent pay rise.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, last night said this is “clearly not affordable”.
The Treasury is reportedly considering pay rises of 2 per cent across the board in the public sector for next year.
Union chiefs were accused by the Tory party of “shamefully trying to engineer a Christmas of discontent”.
The RCN was yesterday facing a growing backlash from NHS nurses, with more than half of acute trusts in England failing to back strikes that could result in cancellations of thousands of operations.
Health service leaders said they fear that every NHS staff group apart from doctors could embark on strikes by the end of this year, while medics are expected to ballot in spring.
Next week, NHS trusts will embark on Operation Arctic Willow – a threeday military-style drill to prepare for the threat of strikes as winter bites.
The Public and Commercial Services union – which represents civil servants – is preparing to announce a series of dates “running over the Christmas period and into the New Year”.
The union represents workers in 124 Whitehall departments, including the Border Force and Passport Office, as well as those working in job centres and processing benefit payments.
“People think civil servants are grey suits sitting at their desks,” a source said. “But when they don’t work you actually notice it because the whole country grinds to a halt.”
THE nurses’ union is facing a growing mutiny among staff over its strike threat, which was backed by less than half of acute trusts in England.
NHS nurses yesterday urged the union to reconsider plans for industrial action, which could postpone thousands of operations, as well as lifesaving treatment such as chemotherapy and care at specialist children’s hospitals.
Legally, a vote in favour of strikes requires a response from just over half of those polled.
But, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) used a “disaggregated” ballot, meaning that instead of requiring the majority of RCN members across the UK to vote, and a majority to back the strikes, every hospital was counted separately. While all NHS organisations in Scotland and Northern Ireland backed strikes, along with all bar one in Wales, in England, 102 of 215 NHS acute trusts voted to back strikes, the data showed. In the Midlands, nurses at just one in five hospitals backed strikes, with a figure of less than one in three in London.
Yesterday, Whitehall sources questioned why the union chose to take such a circuitous route – suggesting that it may have been the only way to get a mandate for any strikes.
One observer said: “Doing it trust by trust is certainly an odd process.
“When you look at the numbers – and you’re taking about fewer than half of hospitals in England backing strikes – it begs the question whether they took this route because it was the only way to get any result over the line.”
While the RCN strike plans were loudly proclaimed last weekend without any figures to back them up, it took until Wednesday for the union to release basic data, showing which organisations had backed strikes.
Even now, the union has not published figures to show the breakdown of the votes and thresholds achieved in any of the NHS bodies polled.
Yesterday, Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, and Pat Cullen, head of the union, met for an hour to discuss ways of avoiding strikes that could delay thousands of operations.
Both sides were positive about the discussions, which Mr Barclay described as “constructive”, while the RCN welcomed “a cordial introduction that covered many important broad topics”.
After the meeting in Whitehall, Mr Barclay said: “Nurses do an incredible job and I regret some union members have voted for strikes. My priority is to keep patients safe and minimise disruption – my door is open and we have agreed to meet again shortly.”
A Department of Health and Social Care source said that they did discuss pay but the Government position remained – they were “not negotiating”, as they try to stick to the NHS pay review body’s recommendation of 4.5 per cent – and more for those on the lowest wages – rather than the 17.6 per cent that nurses are demanding.
The talks instead were said to have focused on a “wide range of issues” including patient safety and working conditions.
They said: “There was a willingness on both sides to engage on all those issues. Pay is going to be difficult, both sides set out where we’re at.”
The RCN said the talks were a “cordial introduction that covered many important, broad topics”.
“We await a future meeting to address the specifics of our dispute and the reality that our members have voted to strike,” a statement added.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, yesterday said the pay demands were “not affordable”. Noting that the Health Secretary had accepted the recommendations of the independent pay body in full, he said: “I’m pleased that he will be sitting down with the unions to see how we can resolve this.”
While the RCN has insisted it will do all it can to protect patient safety, nurses said there was no way to carry out strikes without putting the vulnerable at risk.
Neomi Bennett, 49, an RCN member from London, urged the union to reconsider. She told The Daily Telegraph: “Patient safety is paramount and I just do not think any nurse should put a patient’s life at risk. Your little old ladies and people who rely on the NHS, they rely on us as nurses. I almost feel like it is letting down those people who are vulnerable. I just can’t, can’t get it. I won’t be walking out on my patients because I’m there for the patients.”
She added that it was “irresponsible” for the union to support strikes.
Ian Summers, a mental health nurse from Cornwall, told the BBC: “I voted ‘no’ because I felt we were going to put patients at risk. There’s a crisis in the UK regarding nurses. Nursing numbers on wards are at critical levels.
“If we strike, what’s going to happen to people going to hospitals, people in the community – it frightens me because the risk is already there.”
Patricia Marquis, RCN director for England, told BBC Breakfast that current NHS services were “not safe” and the Government has “failed to listen” to what nursing staff have been saying.
Meanwhile, Border Force officials, passport workers and driving examinare among 100,000 civil servants who voted in favour of a walkout.
As ballot results were released yesterday, members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union accused ministers of treating their members “with contempt” as they vowed to “grind the country to a halt”. The strike, which is over pay, pensions and jobs, involves workers from 124 Whitehall departments and arms-length bodies.
Yesterday, the union warned that if the Government “fails to listen” to their demands, then “we’ll have no option than to launch a prolonged programme of industrial action reaching into every corner of public life”.
Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, said he will meet with other unions on Monday for a crunch meeting to discuss co-ordinating strike action over the coming months.
“If you don’t have 100,000 workers on strike on one day, but you have one million, it makes a different political pressure on the Government that is harder for them to ignore,” he said.
The Trades Union Congress, which is convening the meeting on Monday, said it “has always existed to help coordinate strike action between unions”.