09
Mar 2021
Nursing union prepares for strike action over 1% pay rise in England
The Royal College of Nurses (RCN) has set up a £35m fund to prepare for possible strike action over a proposed 1% pay rise for NHS workers in England, calling this “pitiful” and arguing that its members should instead get 12.5%.
The RCN’s governing council voted last week to set up a £35m “industrial action fund” to support members who would lose income during a strike.
Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the union, warned the proposed pay rise would mean an increase of just £3.50 a week in take-home pay for an experienced nurse.
She said “This is pitiful and bitterly disappointing. The government is dangerously out of touch with nursing staff, NHS workers and the public.”
However, health minister and former nurse Nadine Dorries, said she was “pleasantly surprised” any rise had been proposed at this tough time for public finances, when at least 1.3 million other public sector staff, including police officers and teachers, would have their pay frozen for a year.
Ms Dorries told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that nurses “do their job because they love their job” and she hoped they understood “that we totally appreciate their efforts over the past year.”
She added that “in the private sector many people are actually losing their jobs and have been on very much reduced incomes over the past year.”
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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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