The UK government is facing mounting pressure on Saturday to reconsider its proposed one-percent pay rise for health workers, after four major health unions wrote an open letter to finance minister Rishi Sunak to express their "utter dismay" at the offer and call for a fair pay deal
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th March, 2021) The UK government is facing mounting pressure on Saturday to reconsider its proposed one-percent pay rise for health workers, after four major health unions wrote an open letter to finance minister Rishi Sunak to express their "utter dismay" at the offer and call for a fair pay deal.
"The proposal of a 1% pay offer, not announced from the despatch box but smuggled out quietly in the days afterwards, fails the test of both honesty and fails to provide staff who have been on the very frontline of the pandemic the fair pay deal they need," the letter signed by the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and UNISON said.
After reminding the chancellor of the Exchequer that the health workers are the people who have cared for more critically ill COVID-19 patients, the unions urged the government to demonstrate that it recognizes the contribution of the hundreds of thousands of workers "who have literally kept the country alive for the past year."
"We believe you now have a duty to them and we hope that you will make the right choice," they said.
The government has repeatedly said that the one percent rise is all that can be affordable at the moment due to the economic difficulties derived from the pandemic.
"One of the challenges we've faced as a country is in terms of the financial consequences of the pandemic," health minister Matt Hancock told the government's press briefing on Friday, claiming that the proposal is what the government thinks is "affordable."
Labour leader Keir Starmer has called the government's pay offer to health workers an "insult," claiming that they deserve more.
