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Nurses will strike again in England after voting to reject government pay deal Nurses will strike again in England after voting to reject government pay deal
(32 minutes later)
RCN members refuse offer recommended by union leaders by 54% to 46% in ballotRCN members refuse offer recommended by union leaders by 54% to 46% in ballot
Nurses in England will go back out on strike for two days later this month after rejecting the government’s pay deal. Nurses are to launch fresh strike action across England later this month after rejecting the government’s pay offer, sparking fears stoppages could go on until Christmas.
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union narrowly voted against the deal, by 54% to 46%. It would have given them a 5% pay rise this year and a cash payment for last year. In a major blow to ministers, union leaders and health service bosses, members of the Royal College of Nursing voted narrowly by 54% to 46% to reject the government’s offer of a 5% pay rise this year and a cash payment for last year.
The result is a major blow to union leaders and ministers, who struck an agreement in mid-March that it was hoped would pave the way for an end to a series of strikes across the health service. A new round-the-clock strike lasting 48 hours was announced by the RCN, from 8pm on 30 April until 8pm on 2 May. Sources also told the Guardian that without any further movement by the government, stoppages could continue until the end of the year, with coordinated action by nurses and junior doctors possible.
At the time, the RCN general secretary, Pat Cullen, said that following intense negotiations, there had come a point “where you know the other side won’t give any more”. The union recommended to its members that they vote to accept the offer. Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said the proposed settlement was “simply not enough” and called for the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to “increase what has already been offered”.
But on Friday, Cullen said what had been offered was “simply not enough” and called on the government “to increase what has already been offered”. “Until there is a significantly improved offer, we are forced back to the picket line,” she said.
In a letter to the health secretary, Steve Barclay, Cullen wrote: “Since our talks in February, we have seen the pressures on the NHS continue to increase. “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.”
“The crisis in our health and care services cannot be addressed without significant action that addresses urgent recruitment and retention issues and nursing pay, to bring this dispute to a close urgently. The ballot of RCN members, which was open for nearly three weeks, asked whether they should accept or reject a one-off 2% salary uplift and 4% Covid recovery bonus for 2022/23, and then a permanent 5% pay rise from April.
“Until there is a significantly improved offer, we are forced back to the picket line. 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.” When the RCN recommended that its members accept the pay offer made in mid-March, Cullen insisted the talks had reached a point “where you know the other side won’t give any more”.
Cullen added: “After a historic vote to strike, our members expect a historic pay award.” The RCN will now conduct a new England-wide statutory ballot to extend the scope and duration of the current mandate for industrial action, which runs out in May. If members vote for strike action, the new mandate is effective for six months.
RCN members on “agenda for change” contracts will take 48 hours of round-the-clock strike action from 8pm on 30 April until 8pm on 2 May. Strikes are being planned in all regions across England, as well as in Health Education England, NHS Blood and Transplant, NHS England and NHS Resolution. One hospital trust chief executive said the prospect of more strikes would be “catastrophic” for the NHS.
Meanwhile, Unison, one of the six unions that held talks with Barclay, overwhelmingly voted to endorse the pay deal. It announced that 74% voted to accept the offer, while 26% thought it should be rejected. The turnout was 53%. “If nurses go back on strike, and they decide to coordinate their industrial action with junior doctors, there will be no one to run the health service – to provide the care,” they told the Guardian.
Unison’s head of health, Sara Gorton, said: “Clearly, health workers would have wanted more, but this was the best that could be achieved through negotiation. “Junior doctors are already striking. If you have these two staff groups still in dispute, that will be catastrophic because doctors and nurses pretty much are the NHS workforce. If they aren’t available, you have no health service. How can you run a health service without nurses and junior doctors?”
“Over the past few weeks, health workers have weighed up what’s on offer. They’ve opted for the certainty of getting the extra cash in their pockets soon.” While RCN members rejected the government’s pay offer, Unison – which is the biggest union for healthcare workers overall – revealed 74% of those who voted did so to accept the offer, compared with 26% who wanted to reject it. Results of the ballots of GMB and Unite members will be announced on 28 April.
The results of the two unions’ ballots come as junior doctors in England stage the final day of a four-day strike in an increasingly bitter dispute over their pay. Sara Gorton, the union’s head of health, said: “Clearly health workers would have wanted more, but this was the best that could be achieved through negotiation. Over the past few weeks, health workers have weighed up what’s on offer. They’ve opted for the certainty of getting the extra cash in their pockets soon.”
Labour said on Friday that ministers should be “ready to negotiate”. There is concern among some of the remaining unions that the closeness of the RCN ballot means the decision to resume strikes could backfire and end up dividing nurses.
James Murray, a shadow Treasury minister, told Sky News: “There has to be compromise. There has to be a deal, but it’s in the public’s interest as well as the interest of the workers concerned to get a deal and to avoid strikes going ahead.” One official said: “The fact that 54% said no and 46% said yes means things could become very difficult for the RCN. Given how narrow the margin was, you aren’t going to get picketlines like the ones we saw when they staged their walkouts in December, January and February.
He added that Labour did not want strikes, which were “damaging to patients, the NHS and the workers”, to go ahead. “And the legal mandate they had for those strikes runs out soon, because it only lasts for six months. Given that 46% have voted to accept the government’s improved deal, if the RCN reballots, are they really going to meet the legal threshold of a 50% turnout and at least 50% voting for further industrial action?
“I just don’t think that the RCN will get a renewed strike mandate – and the government knows that. And therefore they have very little negotiating power.”
Ministers were urged to go back to the negotiating table by the Tory MP Dan Poulter, who also practices as an NHS hospital doctor. He told the Guardian: “It is clear that for many NHS staff, a pay increase which is below the cost of living and below pay increases made to workers in the private sector was not enough. I hope the government now listens to the voice of nursing, leaves the current offer on the table and improves upon it.”
Stephen Dorrell, a former Tory health secretary, urged both sides not to “retreat into the trenches”, adding: “Ministers have to accept a major share of the responsibility for the situation that we’re in. Their initial stance was to play it cool and avoid engaging positively.
“That hasn’t worked, so I think the government needs to change its stance completely and make it clear sorting out these issues is a priority. Otherwise the risk is that months will pass and the issue won’t be resolved and the pressures in the NHS will get worse.”
He stressed that a winter crisis in the NHS would only be compounded by further nurses strikes. “We nearly got there. The challenge now is not to go back to the beginning, it’s to find a way to build on the 46% who were willing to go along with it, albeit probably without much enthusiasm,” he said.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the “mixed outcome [with different results from the RCN and Unison] leaves the NHS in limbo at a time when it desperately needs certainty” and that hospital bosses will be “anxious about the impact it will have on patient care and their efforts to bring down waiting lists”.
A government spokesperson gave no signal that talks would resume. They called the RCN result “hugely disappointing” and that the offer made last month was “fair and generous”.
The spokesperson added: “The fact that the Royal College of Nursing has announced an escalation in strike action with no derogations, based on a vote from the minority of the nursing workforce, will be hugely concerning for patients.
“Hundreds of thousands of Agenda for Change staff continue to vote in ballots for other unions over the next two weeks and we hope this generous offer secures their support.”