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Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, central London, as nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland take industrial action over pay. Picture date: Tuesday December 20, 2022.
FURTHER national nursing strikes could be averted following a “little shift” in Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s stance, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) suggested today.
General secretary Pat Cullen, due to join other union leaders in a meeting with Health Secretary Steve Barclay today, said there is a “chink of optimism” after the former chancellor suggested he is “keen to talk about pay.”
But a Department of Health and Social Care source insisted that the government’s position remains “unchanged,” with ministers only willing to discuss a settlement for 2023-24 and not this year’s below-inflation 4.75 per cent deal.
‘People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer: not workers,’ Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says
Unions slam use of review bodies and long-term decline in value of wages
