[user104658]

Originally Posted by MTVN

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

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 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.