Strikes

[~ True Legend ~]

I don't believe many members here are from the UK where there are strikes constantly by doctors, nurses, ambulances, bin workers, teachers, university lecturers; I also know there are ongoing strikes over pension reforms in France. Are there any strikes going on where you are and have you been involved or impacted by them?

Following the Easter holiday weekend, there is a 4-day strike by junior doctors. This is expected to be the most disruptive strike in the history of the NHS.

Junior doctors' strike puts patients at more risk - Barclay

The four-day walkout in England over pay comes after the Easter break when the NHS is already busy.

www.bbc.co.uk

The impact is huge.

More than a quarter of million of appointments and operations could be cancelled, and some hospitals say up to half of planned treatment is affected.

The union said there were plans to pull doctors off picket lines if lives were in immediate danger.

Under trade union laws, life-and-limb cover must be provided.

The timing of the strike is as important as its scale - it immediately follows the bank holiday Easter weekend, a period when the NHS already faces increased demand and greater staff absence.

More than 40% of the medical workforce are classed as junior doctors, with two-thirds of them members of the BMA.

It's good that people are speaking out and awareness is being raised. It affects everyone close to the person impacted by the strikes, and I never considered that side.

Neuroscientist Dr Camilla Hill, 42, from Nottingham, has also been affected. She has had two knee operations cancelled because of the junior doctors' strikes - one this week and one back in March. She now has a third date scheduled for 25 April.

She has been unable to do some of her favourite hobbies, which include hiking and sailing, in part because of the pain in her knees.

"I feel really frustrated. It's messed me about, it's messed about my employer, it's messed about my husband - and it's messed about his employer as well. It's not just the patient whose operation is cancelled that's impacted, it's everybody around them."

Do you feel this is a reasonable demand or excessive? If you were a junior doctor, what sort of rise do you reckon you'd be happy with?

Junior doctors are demanding a 35% increase in pay, to compensate for 15 years of below-inflation wage increases.

But the government has said the pay demand is unrealistic, pointing to the deal other health unions have recommended to their members - which includes a 5% pay rise and one-off payment of at least £1,655.

What's your view on this given inflation? I have mixed views, it's such a tricky balancing act. Since the majority of private sector employees receive much better pay rises, which inevitably leads to mass resignations in the public sector.

The BMA has accused the government of refusing to negotiate, and union leaders have said they are ready to cancel the strike if an improved pay offer is made, signalling it could accept a smaller rise.

This isn't a good look.

The organisation's co-chair, Dr Vivek Trevedi, told the BBC striking doctors would return to work in the event of a major incident, but said the government had not formally requested an agreed list of circumstances in which the action would be paused.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) declined to comment on the call for Acas to intervene, but said it was working with NHS England to put in place contingency plans to protect patient safety.

Where you live do you face challenges with the public sector?

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Jemery Hunt, the Uk's foreign secretary, states that wages rises will worsen inflation.

Pay rises above inflation would be a terrible mistake, says Hunt

The chancellor says the impact of the junior doctors' strike on NHS patients is "regrettable".

www.bbc.co.uk

Jeremy Hunt said the impact of the junior doctors' strike on NHS patients was "regrettable".

But wage increases that fuelled inflation would have a "more damaging" impact on the UK economy, he said.

Junior doctors are calling for a 35% pay rise, to make up for 15 years of below-inflation wage rises.

There has been no breakthrough in the latest public sector strike. The government has said that junior doctors' pay demands are "unreasonable" and that talks can only happen if the BMA union moves "significantly" away from their current position.

What a tricky balancing act!

He said if the government stuck to its plans inflation could be brought below 3% by the end of the year.

"The worst possible thing that we can do for junior doctors, nurses, train drivers, teachers is to manage the economy in a way that they are still worried about 10% cost of living increases, in a year's time," he added.

Though the government has pledged to cut inflation, many economists have said that inflation is due to fall naturally in the coming months, as a result of energy prices falling.When asked about the junior doctors' pay demands, the chancellor pointed out that when nurses, who started out asking for a 19% rise, publicly committed to a much lower number "that became the basis of a fruitful discussion".

One can only hope !

 

[Ravenfreak]

When I was a child in the 6th grade, the school bus drivers went on strike for better wages so I was affected by it along with my younger sister. My grandma had to take my sister and I to school during this time, since my mom didn't drive and my dad had to go to work earlier than when I had to start school. I don't often hear of strikes that much here in the US anymore, maybe they still happen in lesser known areas outside my state?

 

[~ True Legend ~]

When I was a child in the 6th grade, the school bus drivers went on strike for better wages so I was affected by it along with my younger sister. My grandma had to take my sister and I to school during this time, since my mom didn't drive and my dad had to go to work earlier than when I had to start school. I don't often hear of strikes that much here in the US anymore, maybe they still happen in lesser known areas outside my state?

There's been bus strikes with a provider recently in the UK too. Glad they managed to get a deal sorted though

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Strikes by emergency agency workers

Environment Agency workers strike over pay

Workers responsible for protecting England's environment stage a three day walkout over low pay.

www.bbc.co.uk

The latest action from the Unison trade union will see staff working on flood defences, river pollution and fires walk out.

These emergency response teams say they are too thinly stretched, making it difficult to protect communities and keep the environment safe.

The government said representatives are meeting with the unions to discuss pay.


This latest strike follows months of industrial action by Environment Agency workers in England who argue a 2% pay offer by the government is not enough to cover the impacts of inflation and equates to a 20% real terms pay cut since 2010.

Unison's Head of Environment Donna Rowe-Merriman said workers at the agency were resorting to food banks.

"The pay is so low that last week the lowest 2 grades in the Agency had to have an emergency pay uplift just to meet the national living wage [£9.53/hr]", she said.

The average salary and benefits for an agency worker is £36,508 whilst the lowest four bands, which represent more than 30% of roles, earn less than £30,000.

Despite the industrial action, which will begin at 19:00 BST on Friday and end 07:00 BST Monday morning, Unison have said that no government ministers have engaged with them on pay talks.

The government's environment department - Defra - was unable to confirm if ministers had attended talks but a spokesperson said "representatives are involved".

Striking workers would only speak to the BBC anonymously. They said their contracts placed limits on speaking to the media and that they feared repercussions.

Tom, an Environment Agency worker in the South East who attended a previous walkout, said: "The low pay means there are real problems recruiting staff. That means we're expected to cover vacant posts and do more for less money. Staff need a pay rise that properly values the important work we do keeping communities safe."

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Nurses belonging to RCN union will be striking again on the May bank holiday. The RCN refused the pay offer while Unison has accepted it. The vote on the pay deal is being put forward to other unions.

RCN nurses to strike on May bank holiday in England as pay offer rejected

A 48-hour walkout from 30 April will include nurses in A&E, intensive care and cancer wards in England.

www.bbc.co.uk

The 48-hour walkout from 20:00 BST on 30 April to 20:00 on 2 May will involve NHS nurses in emergency departments, intensive care, cancer and other wards.

The award on the table is a 5% pay rise for 2023-24.

And there is an extra one-off lump sum of at least £1,655 to top up the past year's salary.

For the first time, the RCN says this new strike will mean some critical care services, such as intensive care, will not be staffed on strike days - something which did not happen in previous walkouts.

The government has said this amounts to an escalation in strike action, "based on a vote from the minority of the nursing workforce".

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told the BBC the government had come a long way with its current offer, and urged NHS unions that are still voting to accept the deal because it would be "best for patients and best for staff".

Healthcare bosses say further strikes will have an impact on reducing already lengthy waiting lists for treatment, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to reduce.

The result of the RCN vote on pay was close - 54% voted to reject the offer, while 46% voted to accept it.

The Unison vote, however, was overwhelmingly in favour of the deal.

What is happening across the UK?​

Nurses began strikes in December in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the largest action of its kind in NHS history.

Health unions in Wales and Northern Ireland are still in negotiations with their governments over pay, as healthcare and its budgets are devolved to all four nations of the UK.

There has been no industrial action by nurses in Scotland after they accepted a pay offer from the Scottish government that will mean a 6.5% increase from this month, on top of a 7.5% rise for 2022-23.

The government announced a pay offer for nurses in England on 16 March.

Other strikes involving school teachers, railway workers and passport office workers have also taken place across the UK in recent months.
The RCN says it will now reballot its members in England to see if they want to continue taking industrial action after the strike in early May.
Unite and the GMB will announce the result of their ballots on the same pay deal in two weeks' time.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

More than 196,000 hospital appointments had to be cancelled because of the junior doctor strike in England last week, figures show.

Junior doctor strike led to 196,000 cancellations

The walkout was most disruptive NHS strike yet - with bosses warning future action will risk care.

www.bbc.com

It includes people who were waiting for operations and other treatments as well as scans and follow-up appointments.

The number of cancellations is the greatest so far in the NHS pay dispute.

And the true scale of the disruption is likely to be higher as many hospitals had cut back ahead of the strike to minimise last-minute postponements.

Some hospitals reported they were not carrying out up to half of their planned work so consultants could be redeployed to emergency care to cover for striking junior doctors.

The total included more than 20,000 operations and treatments. The rest were appointments, tests and check-ups.

It brings the total number of appointments affected by all the strikes over the past five months to more than 500,000 - nurses, ambulance staff and physios have been involved in industrial action as well as junior doctors.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay called the number of cancelled appointments and procedures "deeply disappointing", and blamed it for hampering efforts to cut NHS waiting lists.

He said: "We remain ready to start formal talks with the BMA as soon as the union pauses its strikes and moves significantly from its unrealistic position of demanding a 35% pay increase - which would result in some junior doctors receiving a pay rise of £20,000."

NHS national medical director Prof Sir Stephen Powis said: "Today's figures lay bare the colossal impact of industrial action on planned care in the NHS.

"Each of the appointments postponed has an impact on the lives of individuals and their families and creates further pressure on services and on a tired workforce - and this is likely to be an underestimate of the impact as some areas provisionally avoided scheduling appointments for these strike days.

"Our staff now have an immense amount of work to catch up on."

 

[Nomad]

Strikes are also very common in my part of the world. Strikes have become very common ever since democracy was reestablished in the country about 35 years ago. Since democracy gives the right to protest, people can protest even for silly reasons. These days there are multiple strikes in the country.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Since democracy gives the right to protest, people can protest even for silly reasons.

What would you consider a silly reason?
I don't think protests are silly, personally, but I DO think that ppl can take it too far. Violence is a no-no.

 

[Nomad]

What would you consider a silly reason?
I don't think protests are silly, personally, but I DO think that ppl can take it too far. Violence is a no-no.

Yes, sometimes the reasons behind protests are silly, at least in my home country. Recently, a man died in a road accident people protested and blocked the highway for 12 hours until the driver agreed to pay "blood money." can you imagine having a highway blockade for 12 hours just because a random man was killed on the highway? These people could have lodged a complain at the police station but they decided to go ahead with the protest.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Yes, sometimes the reasons behind protests are silly, at least in my home country. Recently, a man died in a road accident people protested and blocked the highway for 12 hours until the driver agreed to pay "blood money." can you imagine having a highway blockade for 12 hours just because a random man was killed on the highway? These people could have lodged a complain at the police station but they decided to go ahead with the protest.

Shocking! Never heard of such a case. I generally hear about political protests, strikes and climate change protests and that's it.
I find the climate change protests unproductive though, some things are easy to say but hard to do.

 

[Nomad]

I find the climate change protests unproductive though

Climate change protests are funny. They fly on jets and then protest about climate change. They drink water from plastic bottles and still protest about climate change.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

They fly on jets and then protest about climate change.

Oh yeah, private jets

 

[Heatman]

We have had our own share of strike in health sector, education, and judicial sector. The worst sector where we have constant strike is in our educational system. The government doesn't care about them very much.

You can have a good read how we have been under the administration of President Buhari.

ASUU has gone on strike for over 600 days under Buhari | The ICIR- Latest News, Politics, Governance, Elections, Investigation, Factcheck, Covid-19

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has gone on strike for 628 days since the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari's administration in 2015, The ICIR reports.

www.icirnigeria.org

 

[Stardom22]

In my country there is the ongoing protests about the hardships of life and inflation of the basic items and the petroleum products.

 

[Stardom22]

There's been bus strikes with a provider recently in the UK too. Glad they managed to get a deal sorted though

There was time when my country had more than three strokes at a time

 

[~ True Legend ~]

There was time when my country had more than three strokes at a time

strokes? strikes
And oh wow, strikes for what?

 

[Shortie]

I have only really been impacted by the teacher's strikes. My kids only went back to school after Easter last week and with two back-to-back bank holiday weekends and a teacher's strike this Thursday coming up and another on the 2nd May right after the first bank holiday when they have the Monday off as well, it's meaning they are spending more time at home and less at school.

Some parents have wondered whether it was worth sending the kids back as they finish again for a week in a few weeks.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Some parents have wondered whether it was worth sending the kids back as they finish again for a week in a few weeks.

Sorry, why would that affect whether it's worth sending the kids back or not?

 

[Shortie]

Sorry, why would that affect whether it's worth sending the kids back or not?

Due to how long the kids would end up spending back at school between them going back after Easter and finishing again. After all the weekends, teacher's strikes and also bank holidays that we have between now and then, it is leaving them with less time than they normally would have in that time.