The Royal Faculty of Nursing (RCN) has introduced its members will stage nationwide strikes – the primary in its 106-year historical past – on 15 and 20 December, with motion anticipated to final for 12 hours on each days.
The unprecedented industrial motion will severely disrupt care and is prone to be the primary in a sequence of strikes over the winter and into the spring by NHS employees, together with junior docs and ambulance staff.
The union mentioned ministers had not taken up the provide of formal talks for the reason that poll end result over a fortnight in the past and so “chosen strike motion”.
RCN’s common secretary, Pat Cullen, mentioned: “They’ve the facility and the means to cease this by opening critical talks that deal with our dispute.
“Nursing employees have had sufficient of being taken without any consideration, sufficient of low pay and unsafe staffing ranges, sufficient of not having the ability to give our sufferers the care they deserve.”
It got here as postal staff, college employees and Scottish schoolteachers went on strike on Thursday, whereas rail unions reaffirmed plans for eight days of nationwide strikes regardless of a “optimistic” assembly with ministers.
The dates deliberate for strikes are clustered across the week earlier than the Christmas holidays start, when demand will likely be excessive for eating places and retail as workplace occasion season peaks and procuring exercise surges. The primary nurses’ strike on 15 December will come within the coronary heart of a deliberate week of rail strikes by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, on 13-14 and 16-17 December, and on the second day of a 48-hour walkout by the Communication Employees Union (CWU) on the Royal Mail, on 14-15 December.
Though unions have mentioned there are not any plans for common strikes, a number of have talked of coordinating industrial motion to maximise disruption and political affect. The RMT chief, Mick Lynch, has known as for “a wave of motion” on behalf of low-paid staff, a phrase echoed by the TUC’s common secretary, Frances O’Grady, though she mentioned synchronisation was not all the time essentially the best technique.
After a gathering with transport secretary, Mark Harper, on Thursday, Lynch mentioned the minister had “began a dialogue”, and “removed the bellicose nonsense” underneath current predecessor Grant Shapps.
Nevertheless, Lynch dominated out calling off the eight days of strikes in December and January. He mentioned: “If we name off the strikes, we’ll by no means get a settlement … My members gained’t forgive me. I’ve given a dedication – till we get a tangible end result, the motion will likely be on.”
Harper described the assembly on the Division for Transport as “constructive”, including: “There’s a deal to be finished, and I consider we’ll get there – I need to facilitate the RMT and the employers to succeed in an settlement and finish the dispute for the good thing about the travelling public.”
Harper is because of meet the overall secretary of practice drivers union Aslef, Mick Whelan, subsequent week, after one other 24-hour drivers’ strike this Saturday 26 November, which can halt companies on traces throughout Britain.
In the meantime, there have been picket traces outdoors faculties, universities and mail sorting centres initially of the most recent wave of commercial motion on Thursday.
As much as 2.5 million college students have been anticipated to face disruption in what was billed as the largest strike within the historical past of UK increased schooling.
About 70,000 members of the College and Faculty Union (UCU), together with lecturers, librarians and researchers, began a 48-hour walkout on Thursday, with one other one-day strike deliberate for subsequent Wednesday, in a dispute over pay, pensions and contracts.
Jo Grady, common secretary of UCU, mentioned: “If college vice-chancellors don’t get critical, our message is easy: this bout of strike motion will likely be only the start.”
College directors, cleaners, safety and catering employees in Unison are additionally taking industrial motion over pay at 19 universities.
In Scotland, schoolchildren stayed at house as academics throughout the nation staged their first nationwide strike over pay in nearly 40 years, after dismissing the most recent pay provide as an “insult”.
Just some main faculties in Orkney and Shetland opened as regular on Thursday, as 1000’s of members of the Instructional Institute of Scotland (EIS) took half in a one-day strike. Two extra college strikes by different unions are scheduled in December.
Tens of 1000’s of members of the Communications Employees Union working for Royal Mail additionally walked out on Thursday, within the first of 10 days of strikes earlier than Christmas. Strikes are anticipated to have an effect on deliveries from the height Black Friday procuring day this week, with the ultimate motion attributable to happen on Christmas Eve.
The CWU common secretary, Dave Ward, mentioned from a London picket line yesterday that Royal Mail was not paying extra time for overloaded staff and accused them of a “psychological assault”. The CWU has rejected a 9%, 18-month pay deal, saying plans to change working situations by Royal Mail would make it a “gig-economy fashion” employer.
The financial affect of the strikes stays unsure, in line with the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS), whose development figures have beforehand estimated the hit from shutdowns such because the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September.
“There’s a whole lot of displacement with exercise happening both earlier than or after the times when strikes are happening,” a spokesperson mentioned. The ONS has solely just lately restarted accumulating knowledge for strikes after a pause throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Within the 4 months from June to September nearly three-quarters of 1,000,000 days have been misplaced via industrial motion.
Regardless of being on target to be the very best figures for greater than a decade, they’re much decrease than within the peak years of strikes within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties. A complete of 29m days have been misplaced to industrial motion in 1979 – the yr of the winter of discontent – and 27m have been misplaced throughout the year-long miners’ strike of 1984-5.