Nurses return to picket line for better pay

Nurses demanding a fair pay rise and better working conditions have returned to the picket lines for the second time this month.

In the lead up to Christmas, the Royal College of Nursing union, RCN, announced two strike dates, December 15th and December 20th, affecting over 50 hospitals across the UK.

Kathy Greaves, a nurse based in the West Midlands, said: “We’re striking because we’re concerned about patient safety, we’re not recruiting or retaining staff in the profession and we believe part of that is to do with the poor pay we’ve been receiving.

“We haven’t had an above-inflation pay rise for the last twelve years now.”

The RCN are asking for a 19% pay rise, in line with the rate of inflation over the last 12 years and have announced to the government that they will continue to strike until May if no agreement is reached.

The UK is facing its worst week of industrial action, with nurses and paramedics on strike, and postal workers, customs staff and bus drivers all striking as well.

Another nurse, Maxine Palmer, said: “We don’t want to strike, we’ve had no choice.

“Eighty-three percent of the shifts at our hospitals are understaffed, and we’ve got fifty thousand nursing vacancies, so if you think of the difference that one of us can make, imagine the difference fifty thousand more of us can make.

“We are putting our patients at risk every single day with understaffing issues… we’re leaving work feeling upset, completely exhausted, burned out, unable to provide that safe and effective patient care that we want to.”

According to The King’s Fund, there was a 25% increase in nurses leaving the profession in the UK between June 2021 to June 2022.

Greaves also added: “It’s really demoralising and it really affects your home life when you’re late home after every shift after trying to get everything done because we’re short staffed.”

The government claims the demand for pay rise is “unaffordable” but Greaves says it is “a ‘pay justification', after having suffered real pay cuts over the last decade, it reflects the wages we haven't received.

“What we’re asking for is fair pay, and fair pay for the job we do and the responsibility we take on every day.”

Karl Marshall, spokesperson at the picket line for the RCN, said: “The current strike goes on for six months, we’re mandated to be on strike for six months, we made it very clear that it wasn’t going to be just one or two days.

“The next strike dates are expected to come out at the end of this week.”

According to Ipsos, around half of the general public support the nurses in their strike action to provide better care in the long term.

“Marshall added: “We’re doing this now to make sure we don’t have to be in this position again where we’re standing out on the streets every day when really we should be inside doing our jobs.”

To learn more about the strikes, visit the Royal College of Nursing’s website.

https://www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Involved/Campaign-with-us/Fair-Pay-for-Nursing/Strike-hub .