The strike of junior doctors that began today in Great Britain and is scheduled for five consecutive days risks causing significant inconvenience: a record protest to ask for a salary increase, given the increased workload and also given inflation.
The doctors in the fight are those just graduated, already qualified but at the beginning of their careers, who are the protagonists of one of the toughest wage disputes in recent weeks. They are asking for a 35% salary increase.
This time the days of abstention from work proclaimed by the British Medical Association (Bma), the reference union for white coats on the island, are five: up to and including 18 July, the peak of consecutive duration – barring improbable interruptions during the course – in the 75 years of NHS history. The umpteenth unrest follows the failure to reopen a negotiating table with Rishi Sunak’s Tory government, after the rejected offer in recent weeks of a net 5% wage increase proposed by Health Minister Steve Barclay. At the beginning of the dispute, the union representatives had made a request to update wages well beyond the surge in current inflation – after years of stagnation and austerity and the sacrifices endured during the Covid pandemic – up to 35%.