Dhe warmer temperatures are getting in the mood for spring in the UK, too. But the central union for nurses, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), is already looking towards the end of the year and is warning that the strikes by nurses in the NHS could last until Christmas.
Nurses in British hospitals went on strike for 48 hours over the long weekend of May 1st. For the first time, emergency rooms, intensive care and oncology units are also affected. Immediately afterwards, the members would be polled again in a primary, announced Pat Cullen, Secretary General of the RCN. The union’s previous mandate will then expire. “If the primary election is successful, that means more strikes until right before Christmas.”
The “winter of dissatisfaction” in Great Britain is threatening to become disruptions to public life lasting more than a whole year. Although an agreement in nursing seemed in sight, the RCN members rejected the offer – a one-time payment for the past year and a salary increase of five percent from 2023 – with a majority of 54 percent.
In addition to nursing, strikes are still the order of the day among doctors, teachers, employees in ministries and authorities as well as in cultural institutions. An end to the strikes is only in sight in the railway and postal sectors. The approval of the union members is still pending.
To avert further work stoppages, the government should return to the negotiating table “quickly,” Cullen said. “And start putting more money on the table, start treating caregivers with a little bit of decency and a little bit of respect.”
If there is no movement, the strikes could have even more serious effects than in the first round. At that time, the RCN had surveyed its members in the individual NHS trusts, the administrative units of the health system. Only in about half of the districts had the employees spoken out in favor of strikes – there was a strike. In the next round, a new ballot could lead to the strikes being extended to significantly more areas.
The strikes of junior doctors – doctors who work on their specialization as specialists or general practitioners after completing their studies – have an additional impact on medical care. They went on strike for four days for the first time last week. The group carries weight, with junior doctors making up around 45 per cent of the NHS’s medical workforce.
Representatives of their union, the British Medical Association (BMA), can imagine coordinating future strikes with the nursing staff so that they have an even greater impact. Both groups have complained about significant declines in real wages in the double-digit percentage range since the financial crisis. In the past two years, these effects have had a particularly strong impact due to high inflation.
NHS situation ‘really menacing’
The situation in the NHS is now “really threatening,” warned Saffron Cordery, chief executive of NHS Providers, an umbrella organization for healthcare in England. Even before the doctors’ strike last week, 330,000 treatment appointments had been canceled because of the industrial action.
NHS management is now more focused on averting the bottlenecks caused by the strikes than addressing the significant backlog of treatments. In March, 7.2 million Britons were waiting for surgery or comprehensive treatment, a record high. For 2.6 million of them, more than 18 weeks have passed since they were promised medical help.
“It is clear to me that managing the strikes does not work for the NHS. The government really needs to come to the table,” Cordery also called for action from Health Secretary Steve Barclay and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
It doesn’t look like that. In the past few weeks, the government has reacted only very cautiously to the demands of the striking groups and pointed out that it does not want to fuel inflation further with higher wages. Now Barclay stressed that the leadership of the RCN had persuaded members themselves to agree to the wage offer and that another union, Unison, which includes many carers and other NHS workers, voted in favor of the proposal on Friday.
failures in the labor market
Social support for the strikers remains high even after months. According to a YouGov survey, 67 percent still support the striking nurses and at least 59 percent support the doctors.
In the meantime, the economic consequences of the long-lasting labor dispute are also coming into focus. The number of working days lost due to strikes was more than twice as high in the second half of 2022 as in the most strike-intensive weeks of the previous 25 years. “It matters because it’s going on for so long. We’re talking about around six months where the cumulative effects will be quite clear,” said Andrew Goodwin of the Financial Times’ Oxford Economics consultancy. The performance of an industry goes back to the previous level in months without strikes. But that is not enough to compensate for the absences.
Economists predict that the long-term effects will be more significant than the immediate consequences for the country’s economic performance. For areas such as education and health, it is becoming more difficult to find and retain staff given the wage structures, which in turn has a significant impact on the economy as a whole.
The statistics already show a significantly increased proportion of people who are not gainfully employed due to long-term health problems. Among other things, central bank governor Andrew Bailey repeatedly points out that a lack of staff affects the labor market and fuels inflation.
Prime Minister Sunak has yet more concerns about the renewed strike threats. He has made reducing waiting times in the NHS, along with reducing inflation and debt and strong economic growth, key objectives of his tenure. Strikes in care until Christmas will probably make this target unattainable.
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