100,000 nurses to strike over pay
UP to 100,000 nursing staff will take part in their biggest ever strike next month in a long-running dispute over pay, it has been announced.
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will take industrial action on December 15 and 20, after voting in favour in a ballot. Nurses and other nursing staff will take action at half of the locations in England where the legal mandate was reached for strikes, every NHS employer except one in Wales, and throughout Northern Ireland. A separate pay offer has been made in Scotland.
The number of NHS employers affected by action will increase in January unless negotiations are held, said the RCN. The union has repeated calls on the UK Government to accept its request for negotiations to resolve the dispute over pay and patient safety.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said ministers had “declined an offer of formal pay negotiations”.
“It has left us with no choice but to announce where our members will be going on strike in December. Nursing is standing up for the profession and their patients. We’ve had enough of being taken for granted and being unable to provide the care patients deserve.”
The RCN said that, despite this year’s pay award of £1,400, experienced nurses are worse off by 20% in real terms due to successive below-inflation awards since 2010.
The RCN is calling for a pay rise of 5% above RPI inflation, saying the economic argument for paying nursing staff fairly is clear when billions of pounds is being spent on agency staff to plug workforce gaps.
The RCN pointed out that, in the last year, 25,000 nursing staff around the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, which explains why there are 47,000 unfilled registered nurse posts in the NHS in England. Other unions representing health workers, including ambulance crews, midworld wives and hospital cleaners, are also balloting their members on strikes.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Nobody wants to see strikes when the NHS is about to experience what may be its hardest ever winter but we understand how strongly nurses feel and why it has come to this. We urge the Government to act fast and talk to nurses and union leaders to find a way to avert strikes.”
■ Meanwhile, a fresh wave of strikes in other industry sectors are set to take place today.
Royal Mail workers, university lecturers and sixth-form college staff will take action on one of the biggest walkouts on the same day.
Picket lines will be mounted outside universities, colleges and Royal Mail centres while more strikes are planned in the run-up to Christmas. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are also planning seven more strikes in December, including Christmas Eve.