Ambulance staff in Wales have rejected a better pay provide from the principality’s administration within the newest blow to UK ministers’ hopes of containing a public sector “winter of discontent” gripping the nation.
Two-thirds of the GMB union members who voted turned down the deal which might have handed them a median 5.5 per cent pay rise and a 1.5 per cent one-off bonus. They are going to now be part of about 10,000 English ambulance staff in staging a mass strike on February 20.
Workers throughout key sectors, from prepare drivers to postal staff, have taken industrial motion over the previous few months as inflation has far outstripped pay settlements.
The GMB mentioned all 1,500 of its members within the Wales Ambulance Service would probably go on strike after the rejection of the administration’s newest provide. This may have added an additional 3 per cent to the prevailing deal, solely half of which might be consolidated into subsequent yr’s discussions.
Nathan Holman, GMB Welsh NHS lead, thanked the Welsh authorities “for really getting into talks, but when that is their last provide it’s too low for our members”. The UK authorities’s well being and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, should “step up and speak pay now”, he added.
Final yr the federal government accepted the advice of the unbiased pay evaluation physique for a median rise of round 4 per cent for well being staff however inflation has since hit double digits.
Unison, one other union, additionally sought to accentuate stress on the federal government by saying that round 12,000 extra well being staff had been now eligible to take part in strike motion after re-ballots handed the required threshold in 4 English ambulance providers and 5 NHS organisations, together with NHS Blood and Transplant, the place it had not initially been met. The union described this as “a big escalation of the dispute”.
Unison normal secretary Christina McAnea mentioned it was “time the prime minister ditched his ‘do nothing’ technique for coping with escalating strikes throughout the NHS”.
She counseled ministers in Scotland and Wales for speaking to well being unions and arising with increased pay gives for the present yr. To the fury of the unions, ministers have to this point dominated out reopening the pay settlement for 2022-23 in England.
Suggesting the Scottish parliament at Holyrood was “actually displaying Westminster up”, McAnea mentioned that well being staff in Scotland had had a much bigger pay rise this yr “and are set to get a good wage enhance in April following their authorities’s newest provide”.
The prime minister “should roll up his sleeves, invite the unions into Downing Avenue and begin the real pay talks that would finish this damaging dispute”, she added.
In one other growth, the NHS Confederation representing well being organisations throughout England has written to the prime minister Rishi Sunak suggesting that, if the federal government doesn’t enter pay talks, his new yr pledge that “NHS ready lists will fall and folks will get the care they want extra rapidly” could also be undeliverable.
Matthew Taylor, chief govt of the confederation, and Victor Adebowale, chair, famous {that a} determination by the Royal School of Nursing on Thursday to stage its first 48-hour strike subsequent month, and not to exempt workers in crucial areas reminiscent of A&E and intensive care, meant the scenario “has change into extra extreme”.
Sunak ought to “urgently rethink” his authorities’s stance “or run the danger of your key pledge to cut back ready lists being compromised”, they mentioned.
