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'To Save the NHS,' Nurses Strike in Half of English Hospitals
"Only negotiations can resolve this and I urge ministers to reopen formal discussions," said one labor leader. "Nursing staff are looking for a fair settlement that shows the government values and understands their profession."
May 01, 2023
Nurses and other National Health Service workers walked off the job in half of England's medical facilities on Sunday night amid an ongoing fight for higher pay and better patient safety in the United Kingdom.
The latest NHS strike comes after Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unite union members voted to reject the right-wing U.K. government's most recent pay offer, decrying the proposed 5% raise for this year and next as insufficient to offset the soaring prices that have resulted in real pay cuts and a devastating cost-of-living crisis.
Carrying signs with messages such as "strike to save the NHS," healthcare workers marched in London and other cities on Monday.
"I'm striking because claps and applause don't pay our wages."
RCN's work stoppage, which affects half of England's hospitals, community health sites, and mental health centers, is slated to last until midnight.
Ahead of the 28-hour action, a critical care nurse named Charlotte explained that she has "been so torn" by RCN's decision to strike. However, she said, "I know that this is the right thing to do for our patients, their loved ones, for ourselves, for our colleagues, and for the future of the NHS."
"I'm striking because claps and applause don't pay our wages," she continued. "They don't provide incentives for people to come into the profession, they don't improve staffing or patient safety."
"We are a kind, caring, and compassionate profession. We don't want that light to fade," she added. "We're striking and fighting to keep that compassion alive for our patients and for our NHS."
\u201c"Claps and applause don't pay our wages...don't provide incentives for people to come into the profession...don't improve staffing or patient safety."\n\nCharlotte is joining #RCNStrike action for reasons all too familiar to the nursing profession. \n\nRetweet to demand change.\u201d— The RCN (@The RCN) 1682856196
NHS England warned patients to expect "disruptions and delays to services," noting that staffing levels in some areas would be "exceptionally low, lower than on previous strike days," including the massive walkouts in December, January, and February.
According to BBC News, the current strike marks the first time RCN members have "walked out of all areas, including intensive care," but the union has agreed on "some last-minute exemptions so nurses could be pulled off the picket line to ensure life-preserving care was provided."
As the outlet reported:
Around a quarter of trusts involved in the strike have been given extra exemptions for services such as transplant and cardiac care—to allow them to call in some striking nurses because they have not been able to find other staff to fill the rotas.
This is to ensure a minimal level of cover—not normal staffing—as the RCN has to abide by trade union rules to ensure life-preserving care can be provided during a walkout.
In previous walkouts, services such as intensive care, chemotherapy, and dialysis have been excluded from strike action.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen lamented that a strike was necessary and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his fellow Tories.
"Only negotiations can resolve this and I urge ministers to reopen formal discussions" with RCN, Cullen said Sunday in a statement. "Nursing staff are looking for a fair settlement that shows the government values and understands their profession."
"We appear a long way from that currently, but I remind ministers it is entirely in their gift," the labor leader added.
The current strike comes ahead of a key Tuesday meeting between several healthcare workers' unions, cabinet ministers, and NHS administrators. While RCN and Unite have condemned the government's offer as inadequate, other unions have voted to accept it, with Unison leader Sara Gorton recently calling the proposed 5% wage increase "the best that could be achieved through negotiation."
Given that some nurses have been forced to rely on food banks, RCN is demanding a pay hike of 5% above inflation. Meanwhile, Britain's Enough Is Enough campaign against neoliberalism on Monday tweeted that lawmakers on the receiving end of "a 32% pay rise since 2010" and subsidized meals are "in no position to lecture a nurse who, since 2010, earns £5,000 less in real-terms about pay restraint."
\u201cIf you're an MP who's had a 32% pay rise since 2010, and have your meals subsidised by the taxpayer, you're in no position to lecture a nurse who, since 2010, earns \u00a35,000 less in real-terms about pay restraint. There's plenty of money; it's just going to the wrong places.\u201d— Enough is Enough (@Enough is Enough) 1682935347
RCN's walkout was supposed to continue through Tuesday night, but a High Court judge ruled last week that the union's original plans would be unlawful due to the expiration of its six-month mandate for action.
"It is the darkest day of this dispute so far—the government taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal," Cullen said in response to the ruling. "Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today's interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month's reballot for a further six months of strike action."
Unite, meanwhile, is not facing the same legal constraints.
On Monday, Unite members at the Yorkshire ambulance service and Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Trust in central London walked off the job, with the latter demonstrating in the capital, BBC News reported. On Tuesday, Unite members at South Central, South East Coast, and West Midlands ambulance trusts as well as workers at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust and Pathology Partnership, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, and Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust plan to strike.
Unite leader Onay Kasab told BBC that if U.K. Health Secretary Steve Barclay tries to impose the government's pay offer, the union will take further action.
"We will ballot, and where we have current mandates—some of them lasting up to September—then we will continue taking action, and we will escalate," said Kasab.
The struggle over the future of the NHS comes as the House of Lords proceeds with its third and final reading of the Tories' so-called Strikes Bill. The legislation, already approved by the House of Commons, threatens to take away the right of nurses, ambulance workers, teachers, firefighters, rail workers, and others to strike.
Progressive critics argue that the proposal to fire striking public sector workers who refuse to comply with a mandatory return-to-work notice amounts to a "pay cut and forced labor bill" and would constitute a "gross violation of international law."
During a recent speech denouncing the anti-strike legislation, left-wing Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana said that the bill is about "shifting the balance of power: weakening the power of workers and making it easier for bosses to exploit them and for the government to ignore them."
Enough Is Enough, for its part, has stated: "You're either with nurses, teachers, firefighters, and frontline workers. Or you're with the Tory government. It's time for everyone to pick a side."
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Rejecting Tory Government Pay Offer as Inadequate, NHS Workers to Resume Strike
"It is quite frankly a joke that NHS workers are being forced to fight for a decent pay rise after years of pay freezes and all their sacrifices during the pandemic," said one union leader.
Apr 28, 2023
A leading union that represents thousands of National Health Service workers in the U.K. announced Friday that its members voted to reject the right-wing Tory government's latest pay offer, setting the stage for large-scale strikes to resume next week.
"Unite was clear from the start it was very unlikely this offer would be accepted," Sharon Graham, the union's general secretary, said in a statement. "It is quite frankly a joke that NHS workers are being forced to fight for a decent pay rise after years of pay freezes and all their sacrifices during the pandemic."
"The government should be delivering generous rewards for that instead of a parade of insults, bullying, and lies about our industrial action. Unite will be backing our NHS members 100%," Graham added. "Unite's members will now return to the picket line to continue their fight."
Unite said the latest pay proposal by the U.K. government, led by Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, was inadequate in the face of persistently high inflation, which has led to real pay cuts for many healthcare workers who have been striking on and off for months.
The government offered a 5% pay increase for this year and 2024, along with a lump-sum payment for last year. Of all the Unite members who voted on the government's proposal, 52% opposed it, the union said.
"It is increasingly clear that there is money to fund a fair pay rise, particularly from properly taxing the huge increases in profits made from the cost of living crisis by corporate profiteers," said Onay Kasab, Unite's national lead officer. "The government is choosing to let the NHS collapse. It must make the right decision, return to negotiations, and put forward a better deal."
"Until there is a significantly improved offer, we are forced back to the picket line."
While the members of some unions have voted to accept the government's offer, major labor organizations—including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and now Unite—have rejected the proposal and vocally denounced it.
According to a recent analysis by the Trades Union Congress, U.K. bankers have seen their pay rise more than three times faster than that of nurses since the 2008 financial crisis.
"What has been offered to date is simply not enough," Pat Cullen, RCN's general secretary and chief executive, wrote in a letter to U.K. health secretary Steve Barclay earlier this month. "The government needs to increase what has already been offered and we will be highly critical of any move to reduce it."
"Until there is a significantly improved offer, we are forced back to the picket line," Cullen continued. "Meetings alone are not sufficient to prevent strike action and I will require an improved offer as soon as possible. In February, you opened negotiations directly with me and I urge you to do the same now."
Instead of meeting the demands of RCN—which has called for a pay raise of 5% above inflation—and other unions, Sunak's government has repeatedly attacked the labor organizations and supported proposals to crack down on worker strikes.
On Thursday, a U.K. judge sided with the government and ordered RCN to cut its upcoming strike action short by a day, arguing the original strike plans would have fallen outside of the limits of the union's strike mandate. The strike was supposed to run from Sunday through Tuesday evening, but it will now end on Monday.
"It is the darkest day of this dispute so far—the government taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal," Cullen said Thursday. "Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today's interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month's reballot for a further six months of strike action."
"The government has won this legal battle," Cullen added. "But they have lost the support of nursing staff and the public. The most trusted profession has been taken through the courts, by the least trusted people."
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UK Nurses, Health Workers Stage Largest NHS Strike in Nation's History
"They aren't just fighting for themselves—they're fighting for the NHS," said the Enough Is Enough campaign.
Feb 06, 2023
Condemning the United Kingdom's Conservative-controlled government for putting "patients at risk" by refusing to pay nurses fairly and forcing healthcare providers out of the profession, tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers joined forces on Monday to stage the largest work stoppage in the history of the venerated National Health Service.
The workers, who along with teachers and other public and private sector employees have gone on several strikes separately over the past several months, are calling on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government to return to the bargaining table with unions including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unite, and GMB and negotiate higher wages and better working conditions.
The unions initially called for a pay raise of 5% above inflation, which stood at 9.2% in December, but were offered a raise of just 4.75% on average. The nation's 14 health unions have rejected the Tories' calls for them to accept the offer.
Hospital executives have also called on the government to reopen negotiations for their workers, who earn less than £30,000 ($36,000) per year in the case of newly qualified nurses. Paramedics take home salaries in the low £30,000 range, while specialist nurses earn roughly £45,000.
Ahead of Monday's strike, 100,000 members of the RCN signed an open letter warning that years of low pay have driven tens of thousands of nurses to leave the profession, including 25,000 over the last year—contributing to long waits for care and harming patient safety.
"The NHS is the bedrock of modern Britain," said the nurses. "And it is crumbling. Nursing staff make up more than half of the NHS workforce, and they are pushed beyond their limits. Care is not safe and the public pays the price. On behalf of the nursing profession, I implore you to see sense. Protect nursing to protect the public."
A number of signs on picket lines across Britain on Monday alluded to patient safety.
\u201cUp the striking ambulance workers! \ud83d\ude91\n\n\ud83d\udcf8 @GMBCampaigns picket line in Gateshead today\u201d— Enough is Enough (@Enough is Enough) 1675689572
Officials in Sunak's government have focused on the disruption to healthcare the strikes could cause, with Health Minister Steve Barclay saying, "Strikes by ambulance and nursing unions this week will inevitably cause further delays for patients who already face longer waits due to the Covid backlogs."
One striking worker on a picket line in London held a sign reading, "Strikes are meant to be disruptive."
Not all ambulance workers are going on strike at the same time and emergency calls are still being answered, France24 reported, and about a third of nurses in the U.K. will not be on strike this week.
RCN nurses will continue their strike on Tuesday, while ambulance workers will stage a second work stoppage on Friday and physiotherapists plan to walk out on Thursday.
"They aren't just fighting for themselves—they're fighting for the NHS," said the Enough Is Enough campaign, a grassroots movement in the U.K. that has been leading the call for the government to address the cost-of-living crisis in the country and demanding Sunak's government "tax the rich" to ensure fair wages for workers.
\u201cSupport your local nurses! \ud83d\udc4a\n\nThousands of nurses are on strike across England today.\n\nThey aren\u2019t just fighting for themselves \u2013 they\u2019re fighting for the NHS.\n\nFind a picket line near you: https://t.co/wm7nkfgPyP\u201d— Enough is Enough (@Enough is Enough) 1675671085
About 500,000 U.K. workers, largely in the public sector, have held walkouts since last summer. Last week about 300,000 educators went on strike with the support of 59% of Britons despite the fact that the walkout forced an estimated 85% of schools to close.
Last month, a poll by The Observer found that about 57% of people supported the planned strike by nurses and 52% were in favor of ambulance workers walking out to demand fair pay.
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