NHS workers could go on strike over pay

GMB Union will be balloting all members in 55 NHS trusts across the south after workers overwhelming rejected a 'real terms pay cut'

Members of a union from across Dorset's NHS hospital and ambulance trusts could go on strike over pay.

GMB Union will be balloting all members in 55 NHS trusts across the south after workers overwhelming rejected a 'real terms pay cut'.

The industrial action ballot will open on November 10 and close December 15. Any strikes would take place in the new year.

More than nine out of 10 GMB members in the NHS have reportedly rejected the government’s pay offer of three per cent, which the union says is a pay cut when considering inflation, increases in national insurance and pension contributions and energy and petrol price rises.

GMB has been campaigning for a restorative increase of 15 per cent, or £2 per hour, whichever is highest; to replace what has been lost from NHS pay packets over the past decade.

Nick Day, GMB lead NHS officer for southern region, said: When 94 per cent of our members rejected this miserable pay award, GMB was crystal clear with Sajid Javid; the government needs to get around the table and improve this offer.

The wall of silence we’ve received has left us no choice. GMB members will be asked to take formal industrial action and to give us a mandate by mid-December, he said.

We cannot be in a situation where those who dealt with the front end of the Covid-19 pandemic end up with less in their pockets after National Insurance increases, increased pension costs and the huge increases in energy bills and the cost of getting to work, he said.

He said: Enough is enough; we will never solve the staffing shortages if the government doesn’t wake up and smell the coffee.