Ambulance strike is disgraceful?

[somethingdifferenttoday]

I just read this on bbc news, "Unions say life-threatening callouts will continue to be responded to over the next 24 hours but some urgent calls, for example for late-stage labour or a fall in the home, might not be answered."

Is it just me who thinks this is disgraceful?

Late stage labour at home or an elderly person laying with a broken hip ARE emergencies! I'm not sure how people in a caring profession can strike knowing these calls will go unanswered.

The unions talk about the backlog, paramedics stuck outside hospitals in ambulances unable to unload and go back out on the road but then admit they are striking for more pay rather than as a protest about that. The average salary of ambulance staff of £47,000 and a 4% pay rise isn't enough they claim but if they are given a pay rise, they will stop striking.

I think they do deserve more money (we all do with inflation) but I can't get past them supposedly being in a caring profession but taking steps that WILL cause extra deaths regardless.

I work in the private sector and have had zero pay rise. If I went on strike nobody would die and I'd be fired. This approach is abusing the critical position of their roles. I hope they are not given a pay rise as it will just demonstrate that blackmail works to other public sector workers and we will have even more strikes.

YABU = I support them striking
YANBU = I agree, it's disgraceful behaviour from a caring profession

YABU.

The laws around striking in this country are very tight indeed. The only reason unions can call a strike is over "pay and conditions" (and only then if a significant number of union members vote to strike).

The strikes taking place across the public sector at the moment are the result of poor working CONDITIONS, rarely about pay. But when your conditions are at an all time low and your salary has also stagnated, then there's not much to make the job attractive.

Public services in this country need an enormous overhaul, better training, better funding and better staffing.

What we are all seeing now is the result of the "efficiencies" brought in by Osborne than have been endorsed by every Tory minister since.

@Venetiaparties did you vote Conservative?

If anyone is guilty of manslaughter it's them.

I am also amazed that anyone - anyone - thinks that a 19% payrise is reasonable in any circumstances at the moment. And that the Government is being blamed for the strike because the unions haven't got their own way. I do get 19% is for negotiation, but if that's the starting point they are hardly going to settle for 5%, are they?

Striking is not the “only tool public sector workers have”
The unions can still demand negotiate collective bargaining agreements
They can still start up petitions
They can still set up protests
They can still appeal to various professional bodies to lobby the government on their behalf.

Yes it’s all been done with not enough result yet, but I think striking is a step too far. I don’t care how bad conditions and pay are…you don’t decide that someone else’s child or partner or parent is going to be left to die do you can get better pay and conditions. I think it’s utterly medieval and not what any civilised person should do or any civilised society accept.

1. because there is no quantifiable end point to that to negotiate on

2. absolutely agree with you on that one 100%

3. I wouldn't personally strike as I would feel morally wrong but it doesn't mean others don't have a right to.

And I hope you mean the strike is disgusting rather than a healthcare worker choosing to leave a job for any reason ?

Because they can't. They can only strike about certain things, their own pay and conditions, not the state of the NHS.

What is your job Venetia and how much do you earn? Are you frustrated every day at being unable to do the role you trained for due to years of government underfunding and incompetency and waste? Do you see ill patients getting sicker and sicker and their families becoming more and more worried and being unable to provide them with the care they need because the wards and corridors and ambulances are full? Do you struggle to sleep at night because you are the one in the face of it, seeing these people?

I'm not, I'm a wfh finance professional already finished for Christmas. I know I couldn't handle what paramedics (and nurses and even teachers) face. I think they (and we) deserve better.

To the OP and anyone else branding the strikes "disgusting" 🙄 can I ask why your vitriol is reserved for the workers and not the government? I pointed out in an earlier post that strike action was averted in Scotland because unions and the government came to a deal... Not the original 19%. They negotiated. So why not blame the government for not doing that?

The idea that paramedics shouldn't strike because others earn less is preposterous.

You go on strike, too. Nobody should be unable to afford to feed/keep their families warm. Get angry, but point your anger in the right direction. Not at other workers who are also being taken the piss out of.

Nope, it'd be absolutely distraught and livid that the government caused this, I couldn't blame the people striking to earn enough to live on (not sure where you got £47k from definitely no paramedics I know on anything close to that) if they, and nurses, were paid a decent amount they wouldn't be so hard to recruit and we wouldnt have these extreme backlogs.

YABU No one wants to strike

Is that what you took from the news coverage?

The NHS is broken. The strike is only ostensibly about pay. Like teachers many in public services can' strike for any other reasons. There is a strict and narrow window for legal industrial action. Given the difficulties in organising a strike within the NHS, the obvious issues for patients, it isn't something done easily or lightly.

I'd agree that the % raise asked for is unattainable. But it does highlight the very real issues all workers in the UK currently face (well, those of us in run of the mill, average employment).

I had/have reservations about the train strikes, but the NHS strike action is forcing me to reconsider that. Something has to change in many of our public services. Not necessarily the salary banding but the root and branch organisation. All of us who work in public services can point to the places where money is wasted, often because of the legal constrictions but also because of hoop jumping - getting badges, certificates to prove 'good employer' status, like Stonewall Champions etc etc

Your ire is mispalced. Take another look!

As others have pointed out the salary you quoted is wildly inaccurate
People are already dying and suffering because of the way the nhs has been systematically brought to its knees by the Tory government
Not one nurse paramedic or NHS worker I know wants to strike but collectively the situation day to day is so dire for patient safety that they have no choice.
The government is responsible for this and when you are being hounded for payment or cannot afford to pay when you require medical care in the future you might get it then.
You should be ashamed of yourself.

YABU and they are not paid that. And the government has been on strike for years as it where in regards to the NHS. Everyone is burnt out apart from management.

YABU

I'm genuinely curious OP what you expect NHS staff to do. The NHS has been in crisis for years. Their pay has been CUT in real terms for years, while their workload has increased exponentially due to, surprisingly, not many people wanting to work like dogs for less and less real terms income so leaving/not entering the health and care professions.

Pay is linked to the quality of service because people aren't conscripted into the bloody NHS, if you don't pay qualified staff enough to live reasonably they will leave in droves (at the lower grades for jobs that pay almost as much for far less stress and inflexibility and responsibility, at the higher grades to go into private practice or bugger off abroad to countries that actually value health professionals). Oh yes, and of course we kneecapped ourselves with Brexit, meaning we lost a huge recruitment pool of trained staff from Europe.

The staffing crisis contributes to the absolutely fucked situation in hospitals where there are simply not enough beds for the patients queuing up outside the doors, and not enough staff to attend to the patients in the beds they do have, due to being starved of funds for a decade.

Staff pay is absolutely critical for recruitment and retention, and the NHS in its current form only functions because of the dedication of its staff - working far far more than their contracted hours, working in understaffed conditions which are unsafe for them and leave them wide open to making catastrophic mistakes, working beyond their skillset and paygrade because there is simply no-one else. The staff striking are the ones who have hung on in there, are still hanging on in there, through all this shit, because they are utterly dedicated to their jobs and patient care. The ones who were only ever 'in it for the money' are LONG gone to better paying, less stressful work. These are people trying to save the institution they work for, not abandon it.

Long and the short if it is you cannot run an NHS without staff, and you cannot recruit or retain staff to job with such unsocial hours, enormous wrkloads and terrifying responsibility unless you pay them appropriately. They've been saying this for years as staff bled away. Noe they've started shouting. What else can they do? I mean really, WHAT ELSE?

Yabu. The government have spent twelve years grinding the NHS down and ignoring everyone's warnings.

YABU as people have suggested

But YANBU because they and the rest of the Country have let it come to this point. Long ago people should have protested and striked but they were too busy being greedy about their house price gains and could have easily gotten Labour into power.

So much for the Brexit bonus too.

Katypp 19% is roughly the value of pay erosion in the public sector during the last decade or so of Tory rule. All people are asking is for the same quality of life we used to have. Not going backwards. Not constantly being expected to do more and more on goodwill.

YABU, 47k is not what most ambulance staff will get, most would be lucky to get half that. This government have put our services under unacceptable pressure and that is not the fault of the people trying their best. The government could fix it if they wanted to, they just don't want to.

Are you the same OP who started the nurses thread about it being disgraceful to strike?
Helllllooooooo daily Fail!

I wish folk would stop reporting average salary. The median salary is the important figure as salary is not normally distributed across a staff group.

Also you do realise most ambulance staff aren't paramedics? Dh crew mate is an ECA and earns 22k for full time shift work

Yabu

So what do you think is the answer? Should those who are striking just accept the shit situation is not going to change and leave the NHS like so many are already doing? Leaving still more patients to suffer and die. Or just continue working in unbearable conditions for wages that don't always cover their outgoings Do you think they should continue the failed strategy of asking the government nicely to give them a wage they can live on?

Perks ??

Really......where , when, how???
We have to wait like everyone else (even though it would make sense to fix us to get us back to work!)
Im part time and regularly work over my contracted hours for time owing (that I don't always get back)
I do a compulsory "on call" in my own time fortnightly that is equivalent to my weekly contracted hours for £ 1-70 an hour.
PS: has anybody checked the suicide rate amongst healthcare workers lately......they are appalling!
That's what you should be getting concerned about moron