Over 100k U.K. nurses embark on first-ever strike to demand for better pay
Nurses in the United Kingdom on Thursday, December 15, embarked on a strike to demand better pay.
As many as 100,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) – the UK’s biggest nursing union – are taking industrial action in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, CNN reports.
It is the largest nurses’ strike in the history of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and the first time in its 106-year history.
The nurses had earlier in November demanded a 19 percent increase in their salary.
The NHS pay review body was said to have recommended a pay increase of at least £1,400 ($1,740) in addition to a three percent pay rise in 2021, an offer the RCN rejected.
Pat Cullen, RCN general-secretary, said the strike marked “a tragic day” in nursing and called on the government to “do the decent thing” to resolve the dispute.
“We need to stand up for our health service, we need to find a way of addressing those over seven million people that are sitting on waiting lists, and how are we going to do that? By making sure we have got the nurses to look after our patients, not with 50,000 vacant posts, and with it increasing day by day,” she said.
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