Guest post: 'Midwives deserve fair treatment - so we're striking'

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On Monday 29 September, for the first time in our 133 year history, the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) members voted yes to taking industrial action over pay in the NHS.

It is a decision midwives have taken with a heavy heart, but it's a necessary one. The overwhelming 'yes' vote in our ballot shows the level of frustration among our members, of which over 99% are women. It was a clear message: enough's enough.

The strike will be a protest against the rejection of a 1% uplift to NHS pay. Midwives have seen three years of pay restraint and are now facing another two. If the planned pay restraint goes ahead, in 2016 midwives’ pay will have only increased by 1% since 2010.

If a typical midwife's pay had risen in line with inflation since 2010 they would today be paid over £4000 more than they are actually getting. That much money is enough to pay three years’ worth of household energy bills, or a year and half of childcare in after school club. Midwives and maternity support workers have already lost out, and now they face another year of working out whether there is anything left to cut from their household budget.

NHS maternity services in England have been struggling for years to cope with a deep and enduring shortage of midwives. Teams have been working flat out, often staying late and working large amounts of unpaid overtime as they try their hardest to give women the best possible care they can. After years of stress, pressure and overwork, to be told that they face another year of rising bills and static pay is too much.

But of course, the safety of women and their babies will always come first with midwives. On strike day – the 13 October - some of our members will stop working for four hours between 7am and 11am, but some will continue to go to work to cover essential services. The intention is that the service provided will be similar to the service on a bank holiday. Women in labour will still receive safe, high quality care from their midwife – the only change they might notice is that their midwife may wear a sticker to show that they are supporting the action.

The RCM's representatives will be working with health trusts to ensure that contingency plans are put in place so that essential services continue. Ensuring safety for women and babies is a midwife's first priority. This action will not change that.

There will also be further industrial action between Tuesday 14 October and Friday 17 October. It is likely that any woman using maternity services during this period will be completely unaware that action is being taken, as this action will be aimed at employers. It will highlight the fact that maternity services often operate on the goodwill of midwives and Maternity Support Workers.

Midwives often work many hours of unpaid overtime and do not take breaks to ensure that woman are safe and that services continue to be delivered. They will now claim for that overtime and ask to be paid for it. They will take their well-earned breaks.

We have calculated that just 13 hours overtime is the equivalent of a 1% pay rise. Many midwives work on average at least two hours of unpaid overtime per week. Often they work many more. The goodwill that midwives give to the NHS is worth far more than the 1% pay increase. This highlights how unreasonable and short-sighted their - the employers' - position is.

All midwives are asking for is fair pay after years of pay restraint. A poll by the Royal College of Midwives showed that a majority of the public support a 1% pay increase for NHS staff and industrial action by midwives, provided arrangements are made to ensure that any pregnant woman in need of immediate care continues to receive it during any action, which they will.

I would appeal to women, especially mums, to support midwives in this action - by tweeting, by writing to your MP, and by sharing the RCM's infographics on Facebook. We are not asking for special treatment, we are just asking for fair treatment. I hope you'll support them.

Newly qualified midwives start on £21,478.

It saddens me when I see unsympathetic responses to a valid request for a decent wage and working conditions.

I support the strike. I respect the job MWs do and I know I couldn't do it myself.

I wholeheartedly support the strike. I have a New Years Day delivery date, and I'm not stressing about the bank holiday working arrangements which are the same as those offered during the strike action. I don't really understand why anyone would object to that level of cover tbh, surely it just means that people won't be booked in for procedures like being induced on that specific day rather than active labour care being compromised?
Midwives are woefully underpaid. Also, most of us suffer being undermined by management at work, but it must be so much more demoralising to have that play out in the public eye. I hate to think of experienced midwives leaving in droves and juniors being insufficiently supported.
I hope we don't lose the NHS. Surely no one wants an American system do they? Come on people, where's the love for these amazing people who save and lift lives?

Midwives do an amazing job and they should be paid more than they are, in recognition of the importance of what they do.

If they need to strike to make that point clear (and they're not asking for much, it's not an enormous pay rise) then I support that. I think it's sad that they have to strike but I don't believe the decision was taken lightly.

I fully support the strike. I'm private sector too and how MP's can have the 11% and then dare to quibble a smaller rise for our highly trained midwives whose jobs are literally a matter of life or death... Well it really makes me angry. First the expenses, now this? All in it together, my arse.

thanks to all the wonderful midwives. You shouldn't be routinely expected to be working above safe ratios (our local health trust operates at 1:33 not 1:28 as recommended by the RCM), and the service should not rely on hours of goodwill to keep going. I hope you all get lots of support with this strike x

Gah, even to the MW's x

Full support here!

I have a question for any midwives on here - how can we show our support? I have emailed my mp, tweeted and posted on facebook and am planning to go to the picket line with as many people as I can rally. Is there anything else I can do? I feel so strongly about the injustice of this situation and want to do something about it!

I always vowed that I would never strike but the tide has turned because it had to. As a community midwife, we used to get paid £58 a month for wear and tear for our cars (essential), £10 a month to have a landline phone (essential because our work mobiles are crap), we used to have bleeps but they recently got scrapped because we all have mobiles (although we are on a rubbish network that doesn't even work in our main office ). Our travel expenses now have to be submitted on line and will only accept the postcode and works it out online. What you actually drive and what you get paid for never add up as the app works it out as the crow flies.

Everything has got more and more expensive, petrol, food and nursery places, for example. Our expenses are getting bigger while our wages get smaller.

I bloody love my job., being with women. They should not make it so hard for so little reward.

For me, my reward, is the relationship that I build with my women through out their pregnancy. That is priceless.

We are losing out and it is wrong. I just want to be with my women and be paid fairly for it. Is that really too much to ask?

I am a British midwife. I have a degree, have to keep up to date with current evidence for my practice, have to do hours of work in my own time to keep up my registration. I am highly skilled. When I work on delivery suite there are often not enough midwives so usually am responsible for the lives of up to 6 people. On a postnatal ward I would be responsible for 12 - 24 people at a time, some of these high risk for eclampsia, haemorrhage or asphyxia. I worry all the time that I cannot possibly give the care these women and babies deserve, just the bare minimum. I am constantly worried for my registration - if I am tired from working 12 plus hours with no break and I make a mistake, I could have my registration taken away and my means of earning a living going with it. Just like that. In an instant. Over the past 5 years midwives are now being charged for parking, have not had a pay increase anywhere near the cost of living rises, have had their pensions cut, staff leaving have not been replaced, every shift is a staffing nightmare, the birth numbers are increasing, management staff at the top of the pay scales are getting pay increases.

My PLUMBER earns more money than I do. He wouldn't get out of bed for the salary I am on (quote). WTF is wrong with this country?

I am sorry people (especially those of you who are other private sector workers also moaning about their pay) but i DO support the strike. In fact I would go so far as to say that they are being namby pamby about it in telling labour ward midwives to stay. They should ALL go. If the NHS know they were all going they would have to make contingency plans and the strike would probably last for all of half an hour before an agreement is made.

If people in the private sectors actually had some bollocks and stood up for themselves instead of cultivating this tradition of moaning and not doing - they would be paid appropriately. MIDWIVES are finally saying enough is enough! Good for them.

Midwives in Canada get paid appropriately. They work for the government too but they get paid £45 - 77K pa. How the British government got away with such laughable salaries I just don't know.

I fully support the strike. Good luck!

And for what it's worth it saddens me that Midwives (and other emergency services) are so undervalued by the general public simply because people working in the public sector didn't get a payrise either!!! How does that even equate??

For christ sake these people SAVE OUR LIVES!! Have some respect!

Just to save others looking on the net, midwives salaries (from Prospects.co.uk):

The minimum starting salary for newly qualified midwives in the NHS is £21,388 at Band 5.
Midwives usually progress to Band 6, which starts at £25,783, after a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 24. Subject to attainment within the NHS Career Framework salaries can rise to £34,530.
Salaries at a senior level, e.g. those managing a team, research or teaching activities, or with specialist knowledge is £30,764 to £40,558 at Band 7.

Gotta be honest - that's a lot less than I'd have thought. For a standard wage of £25k, you've got to be in it for the love of the job. Take that away, and what've you got?

I will be striking. As the RCM have said "enough is enough". With the low staffing, low moral the proposed pay is the icing on the cake. I love my job and after 12 years with another 30 ahead of me the future doesn't look great . The level of burnout within this career is unbelievable. We are expected to do 12 hour shifts with sometimes no food breaks, then some are oncall for the labour ward or home births. I have worked most of the nightshift after the 12 hour shift before and had to stand up snd say I wasn't safe to practise - many don't.....this service is feeling the pinch in a massive way and it scares me. I fully support the strike as we must get tougher, for ourselves and for the women and babies who depend on us

I support the strike (30week pregnant mother of a 2 year old & a 1 year old), just in the few years I've needed the local maternity services it's been awful to see how over stretched & understaffed the department is.
Moral must be in the gutter. X

It would be interesting to hear from midwives at band 5/6 level to see how quickly they really progress. I'd be surprised if they go from 5 to 6 within 12 months.

I'm a health professional in the NHS (nowhere near as valuable as midwives, nurses and paramedics IMHO) but we follow the exact same banding system starting at band 5. Currently about 30% at band 5 60% at band 6 and the rest above. It USED to take a year to progress from 5 to 6, but it now takes, on average, 5 years due to lack of funding and therefore poor job availability and opportunities for promotion. I imagine midwifery has followed a similar trend. Add to that the fact that midwives pensions will have been altered (like all NHS pensions) and older midwives will have to stay employed for longer and job progression will become even more stagnant.

Why on earth anyone would train to be a midwife or nurse in this country for anything other than the love of the job is beyond me. You can get an unskilled job in a warehouse in my area for a starting wage not far from band 5 and, actually, very similar earning potential if you're willing to work hard. And there you will get paid tea breaks, the opportunity to wee whenever you need to, no compulsory on-call rota, no responsibility towards people's lives and and no public flogging in the media every time the service fails someone due to a complete lack of staff and resources due to reduction in funding from government who are happily increasing their own income in line with inflation.

I fully support the strike.

Sadly, much of the NHS relies on its staff good-will which is rapidly coming to and end IMO .
We will miss it when it's gone.

I am a midwife, although I no longer work in fulltime clinical practice. I left my community job two years ago after one too many 24-hour shifts. Start work at 8.30am on a Monday, finally fall into bed at just gone 10am on Tuesday, having grabbed a sandwich and a Mars bar somewhere around 6pm the night before? No more, thanks.

The pp who said 'just stop doing the overtime' is clueless. I would never, ever walk away from a woman about to deliver just because my shift had officially ended. Ever. And nor would any of my colleagues. But a vocation doesn't put food on the table. It doesn't pay my gas bill, or fill the car - the car that was essential for my job - with petrol.

I don't want to sound like I'm special pleading but, really? I've just resuscitated your newborn baby on your kitchen floor and you're going to turn round and tell me I don't deserve 1%? Seriously?

Do not support. As many have said already, unpaid overtime in the private sector and pay freezes are the norm, midwives will still get a pay rise if they get promoted. Plus those that work for the NHS get good pensions and far better benefits like maternity pay than in the private sector. I appreciate midwives probably work harder than other NHS workers and there are well publicised shortages of midwives but they are taking advantage of what is an emotive subject for most in striking. Like many posters, I am pregnant with my first child and this industrial action doesn't make me feel less nervous about the birth. Hope they call it off.

It took me 3 years to progress from band 5 to band 6. In terms of skills I had to attain what many older midwives have had a career to learn in those 3 years, suturing, cannulation, scrubbing, I had to be competent a them all before getting signed off. As well as around a 40 page booklet in all of other competencies.

Good for you, Madrigals.
I would, as would my family and millions others

My midwives (and I'm sure many others) were absolutely amazing. They worked 13 hour shifts with a 30 minute break which they often missed to ensure that I got good care. They deserve every penny and I certainly wouldn't say that just because I haven't had a pay rise they shouldn't. Rather than saying that midwives shouldn't earn more money because other professions have had a pay freeze we should be looking for ways that everyone can be properly rewarded for their work.

Stop comparing private and public sector if everyone in the private sector thinks the public sector is so much better off bloody work there!

I'm a band 5 nurse top of scale with 12 years experience, there is little to no chance of moving to band 6 as the jobs don't really become available, band 6 in my area is only one and they stay in post forever! Yes health professionals striking is emotive but why should MW continue to be undervalued and struggle to make ends meet! I fully support the MWs strike and if us nurses are balloted about striking I will think long and hard as it's something I said I would never do.

As a previous op said work is a daily struggle to keep patients safe and alive and I'm fearful of loosing my PIN number and my job, it's demoralising and work is exhausting there is no way we can just stop when our shifts finish! I wish we could but I would never leave a patient who needed me at that particular moment, we often have just 2 trained nurses and 2 assistants on nights for 27 patients its a nightmare, I'm lucky if I finish my drug round by 1am some nights.

So comparison to private sector is pointless, oh and the pensions are not that great anymore. I'm glad to have mine but pay nearly 10% of my salary every month to get it. The pension by the way has not increased with the 1% pay rise as they won't allow it to be counted towards pension contributions.

You have my complete support and respect!