Nursing staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – but not Scotland – will stop work on December 15 and 20, after, according to the trade union center, the conservative government of Rishi Sunak rejected a bargaining offer.
“Nurses are fed up with being ignored, with low pay and understaffing, with not being able to give our patients the care they deserve,” union general secretary Pat Cullen said in a statement. release.
The strike will take place in the context of a growing cost-of-living crisis which, according to the RCN, is making it difficult for its members to feed their families and pay the bills.
The union is demanding a significant salary increase above historical inflation, which is already above 11%.
In recent months the United Kingdom has been the scene of a multiplication of strikes in many sectors.
The mobilization of the nurses will be interspersed with the first of a series of two-day strikes in which the national railways and the postal service will carry out further strikes on Christmas Eve.
British Health Minister Steve Barclay declared himself “hugely grateful for the hard work and dedication” of the nurses and regretted the strike, assuring that public health will seek to minimize disruption and ensure that emergency services continue to function.
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“These are difficult times for everyone and the economic situation means that the demands of the RCN, which according to current figures represent a salary increase of 19.2%, at a cost of 10,000 million pounds (12,000 million dollars) a year, are impossible to afford,” he added.
The entrance British nurses call unprecedented strike in December was first published on newspaper TODAY.
