Unison Health Workers voted to accept NHS pay offer/ But RCN says NO
 

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Thats one good news


https://news.sky.com/story/members-o...offer-12857147


SkyNewsHD.

5PM another Union speaks

It's nowhere near a good deal for them or what they deserve.

However yes it's a good bit of news for the Country.
This government should still be hanging it's head in shame at its treatment of Health workers however.

It will be interesting to see what the RCN vote is.

give the greedy ****ers nothing

Expected at 5PM today

RCN rejects the offers


30th April 48 hour Strike announced.

I'm actually surprised Unison accepted.

The deal is only marginally better than what they went out on strike against.
Rather pointless to have gone on strike in the first place to settle for such a weak deal.

cut their pay! I bet that baby killer was a RCN member.

you don't get paid when you are on strike, so it doesn't take long before it starts to hurt individuals and it can't be recovered with any reasonable pay rise

That's understandable after a lengthy period of striking I agree.
This hasn't been a really lengthy period of strikes.

They've settled for next to nothing as a serious increase.
I don't see the point of taking any action, if all they've settled for is a paltry bribe and tiniest of change on pay with no real firm commitment of conditions either.

When the cold light of day hits them as to how weak and next to nothing this deal is.
Then they've had it anyway as they've made themselves look like pushovers.

Good luck to them, however the RCN appears to have seen through this deal as to its weakness.

Perfectly appropriate.
Spot on.

There was a commitment to safe staffing levels and (crucially) a promise to separate nursing from other NHS professions in terms of pay structure going forward built into what was on the table that would have been the best thing possible for nurses in the long run ... and that's now lost (they were clear that if it was rejected it was off the table). I think it's been rejected because what was actually on the table wasn't great in flat monitary terms, and it wasn't well understood what was actually being offered.

I actually think a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has been missed for nurses. Their pay is now still linked to the "agenda for change" structure, which doesn't work well for nurses (specifically) at all.

What percentage of the nursing workforce is made up of RCN nurses who voted to reject the deal? I'd guess around 10%? They shouldn't be able to cause this level of disruption to vital care

it's getting pretty complicated. A couple of the unions have recommended that their members accept the deal, but the membership itself is against accepting it in the majority, so it will be going to another vote

I've also heard that the unions are going to target A&E at future strikes, and that will directly lead to patient deaths, no doubt about it.


One way or another, i think the whole thing is going to come to a head very quickly. I'm still very supportive of the NHS workers, i think the government has crapped on them for a very long time and if we are ever going to have a functional health service in the future, it has to be sorted now

Overall I agree with all your post there bots.
Speaking for myself I strongly support the NHS staff.

This is something the government and PM in particular need to really work to reconciling and deeper respectful negotiations too.

For me however there is another niggling issue too as to the junior Doctors..
There's also reported that Consultants aren't too happy now either.
However in place as Chancellor is Hunt, who presided over his shocking treatment of the junior Doctors last major dispute with the government when he was Health secretary.

Some of the people in play in governnent in this scenario now seem to have baggage of previous more confrontational situations with junior Doctors specifically.
However taking on Nurses too, really they'd prefer that than show some respect for them and add more sensitivity to rhetoric.

Stop the more like lip service and treat these workers fairly and properly.

The RCN is the biggest nursing-specific union by far (Unison I think is the biggest overall, but it's not nursing specific). A large number didn't vote at all of course but :shrug: that's the nature of voting, you can't make any assumption about what choosing not to vote means, e.g. No government has ever gotten anywhere even close to 50% of a public vote if you include those who didn't vote at all.

But I guess you could also think of it this way; staffing levels are already on a knife edgeb(and in some places, failing massively). If 10-20% of the nursing workforce quit the job tomorrow and never went back... yes, it would cause absolute chaos in vital care services.

Well I think you can assume a certain level of ambivalence in the non-voters in a case like this i.e. they're unlikely to strongly support strike action. It's a bit more binary than general election voting.

There's always a lot of figures thrown around about how many nurses/doctors/etc are considering leaving their job to show how dire it is but I'd be interested to know how that compares to any other profession. In every workplace I've ever been it feels like half the people there would talk about leaving or wanting to leave but never would

No doubt things are in crisis though and it's a very bad situation. I don't really know what the answer is though

I don't think you can assume anything from ambivalence really, at least not any more than you can assume that a non-voter is fine with the status quo government (so "didn't vote" should be considered a vote for whoever is currently in power).

In terms of the staffing crisis, it's not really about people "moaning" about the job and considering leaving -- they ARE leaving. Quitting, retiring early, moving abroad... and the current job isn't attractive enough to bring in new staff. The understaffing isn't theoretical, it's already here and getting worse by the month.