Latest editorial
NHS workers on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, London, ahead of a march from the hospital to Trafalgar Square, as members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Unite union continue their strike action in a dispute over pay, May 1, 2023
THE Royal College of Nursing (RCN) vowed today to “keep using the stronger voice of nurses” to demand a better NHS after the union’s latest strike ballot in England failed to reach an arbitrary Tory threshold for turnout.
While the vast majority of participants backing continuing industrial action for another six months, turnout was just over 43 per cent, below the 50 per cent required by the government’s widely condemned Trade Union Act 2016.
After Unison and organisations representing physiotherapists and midwives accepted an improved but still below-inflation deal, Unite is the only remaining union in England to have an active strike mandate.
![Unison members outside Oldham hospital, greater Manchester, August 24, 2026 [Pic: Neil Terry]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-08/IMG_9635058.JPG.webp?itok=efrKYNqZ)
The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
