British nurses are leading their second day of an unprecedented national strike on Tuesday, December 20 to obtain better wages and threaten to prolong their movement, in the face of an inflexible government despite the extent of the social crisis.
After a widely popular first day of strike last Thursday, the first in 106 years, nurses continue their movement to try to secure a substantial raise after years of belt-tightening in a chronically underserved public health system (NHS). finance.
And in a United Kingdom which is bent under inflation at more than 10%, they have become the symbol of a population which is suffering from the crisis in the cost of living and does not consider itself sufficiently supported by the government.
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Employees of railways, logistics, paramedics, border police officers, airports, etc., many sectors have decided to strike at the end of the year, and for many also at the beginning of January.
If the British criticize some of these movements which sometimes upset their plans for Christmas, the nurses enjoy strong support in the population.
Because they were on the front line during the Covid-19 pandemic and are undergoing a crisis that has affected the highly respected public and free health system for years.
According to a YouGov poll published in the
Sunday Times
on Sunday , nearly two-thirds of Britons support nurses and half of them support the ambulance strike, against 37% in favor of rail workers' walkouts.
They don't want to talk with us about the taboo subject of compensation.
»
Christina McAnea, general secretary of the Unison union
This popularity puts pressure on the government, which has so far shown itself to be inflexible, refusing to raise the increase of around 4% planned for this year, which corresponds to the recommendation of a body composed of experts responsible for advising the government.
Traveling to Latvia on Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak again defended his government's
"responsible and fair"
approach .
“In terms of salary, it is because this subject is difficult that we have an independent process
,” he added.
Granting more would be unsustainable for British public finances, repeated on several occasions Health Minister Steve Barclay, accused by a union of behaving like a
“macho”
during the negotiations.
"They don't want to talk with us about the taboo subject which is pay,"
Christina McAnea, the general secretary of the Unison union, was indignant on Monday on the BBC.
“The only reason we are continuing (the movement) is that we have no one to talk to about what is really the problem,”
Patricia Marquis, the England director for the main union, told Times Radio. nurses, the RCN, with its approximately 100,000 members.
“Unfortunately, if there is no progress, our members have voted for the strike, and this mandate runs for six months
,” she added, confirming the determination of the caregivers to prolong the strike if necessary.
Unity among the Conservatives has cracked
But faced with the risk of further seeing the care of patients deteriorate, and given the popularity of the movement, unity among the Conservatives has cracked in recent days.
Some members of the Prime Minister's camp have urged the government to let go or at least to open a more constructive dialogue with the nurses.
Several avenues have been mentioned, such as asking for a new recommendation from the group of experts, without the government seeming to want to resign itself to it for the moment.
The government is trying to limit the scope of the strikes for the population.
It plans to mobilize 750 soldiers to replace striking paramedics on Wednesday, and 625 will be deployed to replace border police officers.
