To think that people should be allowed to strike

[Kissmybaubles]

I get it causes inconvenience, and there has been lots of strikes lately Royal Mail, railway, nurses and now paramedics.

I caught on the news this morning that the government are looking to put a stop to strikes. I just don’t think it’s right to take aways peoples right to strike… These people work hard and deserve a decent wage.

AIBU?

In the NHS it's not just nurses who are in the unions and will be striking though.
It's healthcare support workers like me who earn barely above minimum wage.

There's a massive recruitment crisis among healthcare professionals & support staff in the NHS that only a pay rise may solve.
Many European staff unfortunately left to go home after Brexit.

In one very acute surgical ward in my Trust, there's often 1 staff nurse to 20 patients. That's beyond dangerous.
And one acute elderly medical ward often has 1 HCA to 12 patients who all need feeding & toileting at once. Impossible to give proper care.
Theatres are constantly cancelling operations due to a huge shortage of staff. So those who have fallen and broken their hips wait in our Trust on average 7 days for a hip op often in pain and bed bound.
And my Trust is 'good' compared to most.
There is no worse feeling than only being able to provide less than adequate care at work when you are a decent conscientious person.
We can complain to our managers and even to the CQC about the really dire wards but it won't solve the staff shortages.

Strangely on a Sunday, the Bank and Agency shifts are all filled on the wards that are usually dangerously low staffed.
Why?? Because the rate of pay is better.

The Tories are mostly to blame. They are ideologically opposed to the NHS and always have been.
They also made cuts to the Ambulance Service as soon as they brought in Austerity under David Cameron and things have just got worse. I'm not surprised that Paramedics are striking too.

I'm surprised people still aren't getting this fact.

I believe in the right to strike as v important but I think the RMT should've accepted the 8% over 2 years pay deal they were offered earlier in the week. It's a decent deal

So why does it keep coming up in media etc that nurses are using foodbanks?
Foodbank use has nothing to do with your skill and career.. it is all to do with not affording to get food. That applies to everyone. And there are a whole lot of people earning less than nurses that don't use foodbanks.

Yes and it’s not just paramedics who are striking in the ambulance service either. Emergency health care assistants do not get a paramedics wage

I don't believe HCW are striking because they are worried about patients. That's just a ridiculous way of looking at HCW as if they are all saints, which they aren't. They are working to pay for their living and their families. In the same way that someone works in a supermarket or in town planning or education.

I am quite tired of this sainted NHS idea. Probably most recipients of NHS care have fewer employment benefits than the people looking after them.

You think a pay cut is a decent deal?

For parcels yes, but for letters? Genuine question as I'm worried about the lengthy delays to letter deliveries which Royal Mail seem to have deprioritised.

Not many letters are sent anymore and its a money losing enterprise for RM. Parcels are where the demand is and there's plenty of alternatives for the delivery of parcels.

Maybe try asking a HCW eh?

If you have a job, then you should know that whether you can do it is about more than pay but working conditions. If you have shit pay and shit conditions then it’s awful and unpleasant.

In a role such as health care where you are dealing with patients who are ill and you’re unable to do that job well because of the horrific conditions then it’s no wonder that nurses end up striking.

obviously some will find it fine but many don’t.

If you understood how strike action is arrived at, then you’d understand that it’s done by a vote. It’s a proper ballot that has to be checked. Much more stringent than the process to choose our current PM.

so, more than 50% of nurses voted to strike. That kind of tells you something about the bin fire of this government who is unable to negotiate with its workforce.

We aren't allowed to strike! There's some law to say prison service cannot strike

No it is not. They also want to close all ticket offices hence massive job cuts. And get rid of guards on trains = more job cuts.

I don’t want train stations without any ticket offices and I certainly don’t want trains with no guards. It’s fucking ridiculous. Why aren’t the media highlighting this issue, I do not know.

Because they are highlighting that, in 2022, some degree educated and highly skilled professionals are not being paid adequately.
It's also possible that the media is confusing lower-paid health-care-assistants with nurses, which happens often. HCA's have a vital job but they are not registered nurses.

You don’t believe it?
I can’t participate in the strike because I work in intensive care environment.
I am supposed to care for one intensive care patient, I regularly look after two. I am doing the work of two nurses. Yeah, it’s difficult for me, my feet and back are killing by the end of the shift, I’ll not have had my breaks, eaten or drank enough, and opening my pay slip often feels like a kick in the teeth. The thing that really gets me though, is the drive home from a shift, thinking about what my patients deserve but aren’t getting due to staff shortages. Thinking about the support their families need but that I haven’t had time to give. Thinking about how I haven’t been a good enough nurse that day, when the reality is I’m being stretched too far.

It’s getting worse and worse. They haven’t listened to us for years. The only way to make them listen is to strike. I believe I deserve better pay yes, but what I believe more is that my patients deserve better care. And that’s what I hope the strike will achieve.

Yes. The right to withdraw one's labour is a fundamental human right.

Unions have been systematically disempowered since Thatcher.

I’m in Scotland, so far we haven’t been allowed to strike. We’re having to keep voting every time the government give us a new “deal” which is being dragged out. I think it’s a kick in the teeth for the public to be against paramedics, nurses & junior doctors striking. For years, pre Covid, the NHS has been a downright shitty place to work. We’re dangerously short staffed &
ovrrworked, with our responsibilities & job roles forever expanding without any reflection to our wages. The public has the audacity to clap every week for the front line workers to go right back to treating us like shit post pandemic. CLAPPING DOESN’T PAY THE FUCKING BILLS. As a nurse, & I think I speak for all my fellow health care employees when I say that the choice to strike has not been a light one. We want the best for our patients & we have been unable to provide that care for many many years. We need incentives for people to stay in the jobs & incentives to get into the jobs in the first place. Striking is an absolute last resort for us all. The propaganda in the media of how “cancer treatments” (it’s always the cancer card that’s pulled) & “planned surgeries” will be in jeopardy due to the strikes is sickening. I work in emergency receiving, I doubt my department will be allowed to strike but I have definitely voted for it & stand by all my healthcare colleagues! Funny how railway workers & Royal Mail have been allowed to strike several times a year for years but god forbid the NHS robots do.

The government say they are planning to. Does not mean it will happen this year or even next. This is a government that talks but often fails to act.

100% agree with this.
Fundamental jobs should provide a minimum of services, save for the population, at all times.
Other models of strike that do not involve large absences from the workplace should be regulated for this workers. There is such a thing.

@LindorDoubleChoc

"I earn less than the average nurse, or teacher - and goes without saying have nothing like their pension provision."

...I think you'd feel differently if you understood how the NHS pension scheme works for newer members. It's not the "golden handcuffs" of a full pension at 60 anymore. It's linked to state pension age, so 68, and will undoubtedly go up. I also have to contribute 9.8% of my salary to it each month. It's better than a lot of other pensions, but not good enough to make people willing to stick it out for 40 odd years.

They had said, earlier this year, that the redundancies were off the table, not to happen.
Then, more strikes. Some for better pay, some for no redundancies...
It is a mess. Between misinformation and playing up, from both sides.
They keep sitting down and walking off the table.
It is about high time that they sit to negotiate for good.
To be honest, I think they should be penalised for missing services, instead of compensated (as Arriva did recently!)

Employers and government will have to listen?

Of course they have a right to strike. Support them by all means, but don't wail when you can't travel, your Xmas mail isn't delivered and your loved one can't be admitted to hospital.

Wonder if it'll be like The winter of Discontent when binmen and funeral workers went on strike as well. If so we better hope the really cold spell continues.

If the government wanted negotiation to happen it would be happening.

Absolutely. 100% support from me.

depends on the industry? Nurses working hard, saving lives…yes they should be heard. TFL staff stood around doing f all? They can go f themselves.