UK nursing unions are urging their members to vote for a strike to negotiate better pay and conditions after the government came to a contract agreement with other National Health Service staff.
(Bloomberg) — UK nursing unions are urging their members to vote for a strike to negotiate better pay and conditions after the government came to a contract agreement with other National Health Service staff.
Nurses should back a mandate for six months of industrial action in order to force the government back to the negotiating table, Royal College of Nursing General Secretary Pat Cullen said at the union’s congress this week in Brighton. Union members will begin voting May 23 with a result due on June 23. Potential further disruption to nursing remains until 2024 if a resolution can’t be reached.
“If you give the College another six-month mandate for strike action, across the whole of England’s NHS, then government will be forced to act once more,” Cullen said in a speech at the meeting. She earlier called on Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay to resume pay negotiations, proposing a double-digit pay raise. The UK’s consumer price index rose 10.1% in the 12 months ending in March.
The UK has been hit by a year of widespread strikes as stubborn inflation resulted in workers protesting against real-terms pay cuts. Industrial action has spanned across a range of sectors including transport, civil service, education and Royal Mail.
Labor groups representing NHS staff voted earlier this month to accept a 5% raise with an additional bonus after a meeting of the NHS Staff Council. Nurses voted to reject the offer by a majority of 54%. At that time, Cullen advised members to accept the offer.
Barclay has said he hoped workers that rejected the NHS offer “will recognize this as a fair outcome that carries the support of their colleagues and decide it is time to bring industrial action to an end.”
The health service faces the prospect of broad industrial action as nurses prepare to vote on further strikes amid ongoing ballots for senior doctors and junior doctors.
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