The UK nursing union has called a two-day strike on December 15 and 20. They demand an increase in wages in the context of a historic rise in the cost of living in the country.
“Nursing staff are fed up with being ignored, with low pay and understaffing, with not being able to give our patients the care they deserve“said the general secretary of the union Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Pat Cullenabout the situation of the workers.
It is an unprecedented action for the 106-year history of the union that brings together nurses. To the measure, the personnel of England, Welsh and North Irelandbut not Scotland, which closed a regional agreement.
The RCN assures that salaries fell a 20% in real terms from 2010 and calls for an increase above inflation, which reached a historic peak of eleven%. In addition, the union warned about the precarious situation of nursing workers and the care of the health system that, they denounce, is affected by a growing lack of financing.
In this regard, the Minister of Health, Steve Barclaydeclared: “These are difficult times for everyone and the economic situation means that the demands of the RCN, which according to current figures they represent a salary increase of 19.2%, at a cost of 10,000 million pounds (12,000 million dollars) a year, they are impossible to afford“.
The nurses’ protest joins the work stoppages national railways and the mail service, which will also be before Christmas. In addition, the United Kingdom has been experiencing months of growing social tension due to the economic and political crisis -for which several ministers resigned- that is hitting the country.