Nurses' leader to members: don't strike over pay offer – lobby your MP instead

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/16/nurses-leader-pay-strike-offer-lobby-mp

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The leader of Britain's nurses has urged them not to strike over the government's "insulting" pay offer and suggested instead they target MPs with marginal seats to try to force the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, into a rethink.

Nurses would not be justified in taking action, which would be "abandoning" their patients, despite their rightful deep anger over being denied a 1% payrise, Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), told its annual congress.

Carter combined a strongly worded attack on Hunt's "blatantly unfair" decision to reject the NHS pay review body's recommendation of a 1% rise for all the NHS's 1.35 million staff in England with a heartfelt plea not to walk out in protest.

"I know you're angry. But however insulting this government's pay settlement is, and however hard that makes things for you, you do need to think carefully about any talk of strike action. But if you're a nurse, it means abandoning your patients: leaving those babies in the neonatal unit, cancelling that visit to an elderly patient in the community, walking out of the emergency department or psychiatric ward," he told the 4,000 representatives of the RCN's 400,000 members gathered in Liverpool.

Carter's intervention comes as other health unions – including Unison, Unite, the Royal College of Midwives and the GMB – prepare either to ballot their members or consult them about a potential ballot over industrial action short of and including a strike. Unions are incensed at Hunt's decision that only some NHS staff should receive the 1% rise, with others missing out because they already receive boosts to their income through the NHS's long-established system of annual pay increments based on someone's skills and experience.

Instead of striking, nurses should ask their MP whether he or she supports nurses receiving the pay rise and use their electoral muscle – and that of their friends and relatives – to punish those who do not at the ballot box next May, Carter said.

"There are many MPs on all sides of the House of Commons that have small majorities, some just a few hundred, some even as low as 30 or 40. There are about 1,000 nurses in each constituency and if we mobilise ourselves I know that many of those MPs will be looking over their shoulders and wondering if they'll be re-elected at the general election next year."

He said nurses should seek to establish the views of all MPs, but afterwards conceded that those occupying the 40 most marginal seats may be most worth pursuing. He recommended that nurses target Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs in the coming months as a way of pressuring Hunt to change his mind.

Given the recent volatility of politics since Ukip's emergence, even MPs with a majority of 2,000 or 3,000, who would previously have been considered safe, might be vulnerable to organised pressure, he said. "Now is the time to flush them [all MPs] out to say where they are standing on health workers' salaries," he added.

Hunt should not become complacent about staff's deep feelings about NHS pay or "trade" on the fact that he thought nurses should avoid strike action.

Carter's call potentially poses a dilemma for NHS unions, which are planning to take combined industrial action, if their ballots endorse that. Their current thinking is to deploy an overtime ban as an initial tactic as a show of strength some time this autumn.