The UK government is considering a one-time payment for nurses to prevent a new strike in January despite its previous reluctance to grant financial rewards to striking workers, SkyNews reported on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th January, 2023) The UK government is considering a one-time payment for nurses to prevent a new strike in January despite its previous reluctance to grant financial rewards to striking workers, SkyNews reported on Monday.
The broadcaster said, without citing any sources, that the government was warming up to the proposal of Health Secretary Steve Barclay to give nurses a one-time payment to cover the increased cost of living, which he proposed in December ahead of the first wave of nurses' strikes.
The UK government initially rejected the proposal, but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refrained earlier in the day from explicitly denying or confirming that the government brought it back to the table and merely said that "talks are happening," as quoted in the report.
Nurses across the United Kingdom will go on a new strike on January 18-19 demanding a pay raise for the 2022 financial year ending in April, after the government rejected this idea and stated it was only opened to negotiations on pay rises for the next year.
The Royal College of Nursing union stated it would cancel the strike if the government raised wages by 10% for this financial year, which is 9% lower than its initial demands, but stressed that other options would not be accepted, according to SkyNews.
Cabinet ministers will reportedly meet with teachers' and railroad workers' unions today to discuss wages, however, the decision on the matter is unlikely to be made immediately.
Additionally, 45,000 members of the doctors' union are going to launch their own strike action in response to the government's reluctance to give them substantial pay rises, the broadcaster said. The union has stated its members, mainly junior doctors, have been experiencing constantly shrinking real wages, which have dropped by 26.1% since the 2008 financial year.
