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.

As a public sector worker myself (teacher) I fully support this strike. They shouldn't just have to put up with it because times are tough. It's easy for people to say, just don't do the unpaid overtime but (just like in teaching) of course they will do it because they are dealing with people.

I'm public sector, one of those not allowed to strike, I support the strike.

Midwives keep you and your baby alive when it all goes wrong and people are begrudging them 1% and the pensions they pay 10% into?

So who are you going to call on for your maternity related medical emergency? The call centre team leader on the same pay scale or the trained person who has to do 13 hours often without a break who won't leave you at the end of their shift

I support the strike. I support anyone who campaigns for a decent wage. Midwives are essential workers and deserve better.

I have never understood "I'm in the private sector and I've had a pay freeze, why shouldn't you?" argument. Isn't it a bit like saying: some people are homeless so you should move out of your house. It shouldn't be a race to the bottom.

I think for many the fact that taxes pay our wages mean we are viewed as only slightly above benefits claimants. And therefore we should be grateful for whatever we get.

Actually if like to correct many to 'a minority'.

I do think it's a case of "walk a mile in my shoes". In many ways it's impossible to understand it without living it. The private sector do have their own issues and constraints to deal with but I do think there is a large amount of perception verses reality. It used to be that public sector got a, relatively, cushy deal. That's just not true anymore. If it were there wouldn't need to be the push to fill jobs from overseas - again and again - because overseas workers soon realise it's not quite what it's dressed up to be.

I've worked both sectors and can honestly say I support the need for industrial action. There just isn't a comparison.

It's a special kind of nastiness that says "I am suffering therefore so must everyone else". In this case re the "I haven't had a pay rise in years either so quit your whinging" type of response here.

Midwifery is important, and so is the debate this strike is provoking, which makes the strike a good thing. Making a mistake in most professions doesn't involve people possibly dying. We should recognise that in debates about pay some jobs are objectively more important than others.

It's not just nasty, VeryLittleGravitas, it's downright foolish (there, I'm sounding like my MIL). There are loads of us suffering from wage freezes right now, in both public and private sectors. As the economy picks up, what will spur employers to make good some of what we have lost? If everyone has shit pay, zero hours contracts, no spine progression etc, then that becomes the norm and it is harder for any of us to improve our position. If nobody bothers joining a union, or if unions never bother with collective action, then we have really lost our last small shreds of any kind of balance of power. It is completely caving in to divide and rule to tell public sector workers they should just cave in to whatever's meted out to them on the grounds that some private sector workers are suffering.

Final year student midwife here.

I fully support the strike, I will be standing with them on the Monday morning. You know that conditions in a profession must be bad when even the trainees who are there learning without pay are expected to work 12 hour shifts without a break. Our mentors (experienced MWs) do their best to protect us and make sure we get our breaks but we are all well aware of what we will be facing once we are qualified.

I was working in the private sector before I started my training, there is no comparison. It's pretty easy to leave a pile of paperwork at the end of the day and say 'sod it I'll finish it tomorrow', not so easy to do so with a woman who desperately needs your care and support. We just wouldn't do it and our employers know it and exploit it.

Also, the people saying to just train more MW, that's all well and good but for the last 2 years our local NHS trust trained 18 MW a year and employed 9.

I fully support the strike. I volunteer on postnatal wards and I see so many mw's miss breaks and work past their contracted hours. They are run ragged, bogged down with paperwork and not able to give mums the full care they both deserve and need.

A few friends have been lucky enough to start training and they have worked 12 hour shifts with no breaks or food. They just don't get the chance as they need to observe and practice so much and of course their mentors are pushed to provide a high level of care in a short space of time.

People don't go into midwifery for the money they do it because it is a career they love and they desperately want to do and this is where the govt has them. No MW wants to turn a woman away because it is break time or to walk out on a labouring woman because it is home time. They stay longer hours and they work through breaks. Things are getting unworkable and I think they will get worse before they get better. And it won't just be worse for the mw's it will filter to the people they care for, the babies and pregnant ladies will suffer if things do not improve soon

I am a nurse, I absolutely support the strike. Things have to change and the government needs to be made to listen. Proper staffing ratios and levels of remuneration benefit everyone, patients and staff.

For the RCM to support a strike is a huge deal. I just wish the Royal College of Nursing would do the same, I would encourage all RCN members to seriously consider joining Unison.

I fully support the strike, I'll send my midwife a text message of support on the day and may be able to make it to my local picket line, which would be a lovely way of meeting the midwives who will be looking after me in the coming months!

I am honestly shocked by the posters that are so disparaging of our midwives. I work with midwives every day and they are ridiculously overworked and underappreciated. Do you really think it is acceptable for someonewho has responsibility for your life and that of your baby to be working12hour shifts serveral days in a row without a break? No amount of money really compensates them for how hard they work and the toll it takes on their health to work shifts. The current set up is unsustainable. And I'm starting to look forward to the collapse of the NHS just so healthcare workers get appropriate recompense. Midwives and doctors are leaving the NHS by the droves for better pastures, and if you want to know why, just try doing our job for a week.

I am an ex midwife, and left because I could no longer cope with he understaffing and the lip service paid to woman centered care. I support the midwives 100% with this. They are hugely overworked and under appreciated for their skills.

It isn't just plastic boxes - it is paper, envelopes, light bulbs - everything.

They used to have a person with a trolley who went round the hospital delivering everyone's stationery supplies. Then that role was made redundant to save money.

Now - every secretary, every ward clerk has to leave their office/desk and go and queue up outside the supplies room - which may be a 10 minute walk away, wait until the person who is based there is available, then collect only as much stationery as they can carry and walk back with it. This process is repeated several times a week. I imagine the people collecting the supplies lose at least half an hour a day.

The consultants in my department go and buy their own supplies in the local supermarket as it is so much cheaper. But they aren't supposed to do that as everything should be purchased from the "approved suppliers" at ten times the price.

Go into the average NHS finance department and you will find that nobody has a clue how much anything costs.

It is a complete shambles, therefore ideal for the private companies to come in and bamboozle people to sign expensive contracts.

Full support for you all from a nurse here. I only wish the Royal College of Nursing were prepared to make such a stand themselves. The NHS has been held together for too long by the goodwill of the health care professionals who work many unpaid hours so as not to let their patients down. Yes many public sector workers have also taken a pay cut/freeze but this doesn't make it right. MP' s have managed to see fit to give themselves an 11% pay rise while rewarding nurses and midwives with virtually nothing. The other point to mention is that politicians repeatedly talk about the record numbers of midwives in training, that is true but there are no jobs for them at the end because of staff cut backs within trusts. I work occasional extra hours on a nurse bank where pay has been restricted to the bottom of the band 5 pay scale with no pay progression. My hourly rate for this is barely above the minimum wage yet I have 15 years of Nursing experience, 8 of them at senior level. It's time we made a stand.

I fully support the strike. Opposing it on the grounds of 'I have to do such and such in the private sector/a different hc role and it's much worse' is a shitty attitude that encourages everybody to be treated like crap and put up with it. Nothing will ever change if nobody stands up.

I am also due to give birth that week!