Paris Soir - UK nurses prepared to strike until Christmas: union leader

NYSE - LSE

CMSC	-0.53%	20.81	$
RIO	0.42%	103.27	$
CMSD	-0.34%	20.69	$
AZN	-1.27%	162.7	$
RYCEF	0.7%	19.92	$
BTI	-1.12%	55.35	$
NGG	-0.06%	78.12	$
BCE	-0.59%	23.67	$
GSK	-1.96%	49.89	$
RBGPF	0%	70	$
RELX	-3.21%	35.51	$
VOD	1.89%	16.9	$
JRI	-0.58%	12.14	$
BP	0.52%	43.81	$
BCC	2.64%	79.21	$

UK nurses prepared to strike until Christmas: union leader

ECONOMY 16.04.2023

UK nurses prepared to strike until Christmas: union leader / Photo: Daniel LEAL - AFP/File

Nurses in Britain are prepared to strike until Christmas if they cannot reach a deal with the government on pay, the leader of the country's main nursing union said on Sunday.

Text size:

Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) would strike at the end of April and the beginning of May before holding a ballot on continuing the strike to the end of the year, union leader Pat Cullen said.

"If that ballot is successful it will mean further strike action right up until Christmas," Cullen told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

Members of the union rejected a government pay offer on Friday and immediately announced an escalation in strike action.

Hopes had been high that nurses in England would accept the five percent pay offer brokered by the RCN and the government in March.

But after putting the offer to its members, the RCN said 54 percent turned it down.

RCN members will walk out for 48 hours from 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) on April 30, with the action extended to staff in emergency departments, intensive care and cancer care units for the first time.

The refusal is a setback for the government, which had hoped for an end to the crippling health sector strike that has seen thousands of operations and appointments cancelled.

- 'Hugely disappointing' -

Hospital doctors below consultant level have this week been on a four-day strike demanding better pay and conditions.

Cullen said she had received a letter from Health Secretary Steve Barclay on Sunday morning after requesting talks with him about the pay offer last week.

RCN members walked out for the first time in the union's 108-year history late last year, joining a wave of public and private sector workers calling for pay rises as inflation soared.

The government said the RCN rejection of the pay offer was "hugely disappointing" and said it was "fair and generous".

As well as a five percent pay increase in the next financial year, the offer included a one-off bonus worth at least £1,250 ($1,510) per person.

Two other unions representing healthcare workers have yet to announce the results of their ballot on the offer.

Healthcare bosses say further strikes would have an impact on reducing already lengthy waiting lists for treatment, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to reduce.

G.Durand--PS

Featured

Bangladesh measles toll nears grim 1,000-child mark

Bangladesh's deadliest measles outbreak in decades is nearing the grim milestone of 1,000 child deaths, as a devastating epidemic sweeps through the country and crowded hospital wards fill with struggling babies.

Bolivia farmers return to streets over diesel price hikes

Several hundred coca farmers and supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales demonstrated in the central city of Cochabamba on Friday over the government's doubling of diesel prices, AFP reporters said.

S&P Revises Outlook on Freedom Holding Corp. and Core Subsidiaries to Positive

S&P Global Ratings has revised the outlook on the long-term credit ratings of Nasdaq-listed Freedom Holding Corp. and its four core operating subsidiaries from “stable” to “positive,” while affirming their international credit ratings.

Moody’s Assigns First-Time Insurance Financial Strength Ratings to Freedom Insurance and Freedom Life

Moody’s Ratings has assigned insurance financial strength ratings to two Freedom Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: FRHC) insurance subsidiaries for the first time. Freedom Finance Insurance JSC, operating as Freedom Insurance, received Ba1 local- and foreign-currency insurance financial strength ratings, while Freedom Life JSC received Baa3 ratings. Both carry stable outlooks.