LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2023/02/07: A nurse with a megaphone holds up a placard during the … [+]
A legal battle may put nurses’ plans to strike on hold in England, following months of industrial action.
U.K. health secretary Stephen Barclay has argued union leaders do not have a mandate to hold a 48-hour walkout at the start of May.
Nurses had planned to strike from 8pm April 30th to 8pm May 2nd local time as part of a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions.
But Barclay argues trade union laws prevent the Royal College of Nursing — the group behind the strike — from calling for action beyond May 1.
This is because this will fall just over six months from the end of the members’ ballot used to decide whether to strike in the first place. The vote closed at midday on November 2 last year.
NHS Employers — a group which represents National Health Service organisations — says the last day of the proposed action falls outside the window of opportunity to strike and would therefore be illegal.
The organisation expressed this view in a letter to Barclay, who said he had “no choice but to take action” in response, as the BBC reports.
He also implied nurses who took part in “unlawful” action may “put their professional registration at risk and would breach the requirements set out in the nursing code of conduct.”
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen argued the government was simply “splitting hairs” over the six-month period, and criticised Barclay for suggesting nurses could lose their registration if they walked out. She called his response “a blatant threat.”
However, she acknowledged that, should a court find the action illegal, the union would not go ahead with the proposed strike dates.
According to The Guardian, the RCN plans to fight legal action against the strikes by leaning on a historical mining dispute.
Rejected pay deal
Nurses, ambulance workers, junior doctors and certain other staff in England’s public health service have all been striking in recent months over pay that has lagged behind inflation.
Some groups, like inspectors at the country’s Care Quality Commission, which monitors hospitals, have also announced plans to walk out over pay, as the HSJ reports.
After months of impasse, ministers recently offered nurses and ambulance workers a deal that would see salaries rise by 5% this year, and provide a one-off bonus of more than $2,000.
But the various unions involved in the strikes are split on whether to accept the deal, with nurses voting to reject it. Doctors, who are paid via a different framework, are not eligible for this pay offer.
Cullen called any threats to legally block the proposed nursing strike “totally unacceptable.”
According to the BBC, she said: “What they are doing is dragging our nursing staff through a court room, and I find this not just cruel but totally unacceptable.”
In a statement, she added: “This move is nakedly political. Nurses will not be gagged in this way by a bullying government.”
The trade union has already said it will re-ballot its members immediately after the planned strikes to enable it to continue holding industrial action for a further six months.