UK Strikes:

Meetings with ministers to resolve NHS, rail and civil service strikes ends ‘in total farce’

Morning Star | January 12, 2023

Mick Lynch, (left) general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) arrives at the offices of the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) for a Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) meeting

ASTRIKE by 100,000 civil servants is set to go ahead next month after unions branded today’s crisis talks with Tory ministers a “total farce.”

Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin met with the leaders of the PCS, FDA and Prospect unions after they said December’s Border Force walkouts would be followed by massive industrial action across 124 government departments and other bodies on February 1.

But despite discussions over pay, jobs, working conditions and pensions being “well-trailed by the government as a chance to resolve the crisis, it was nothing of the sort because the minister had nothing to offer,” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka charged.

NHS workers demand a green recovery to save lives and help the country get back on its feet

WORKERS PROTEST IN UK

Matt Trinder

Morning Star | April 09, 2021

NHS workers protest for a pay rise for health workers outside 10 Downing Street

NHS workers are demanding a green recovery to help get the country back on its feet after Covid-19 and save thousands of lives.

In a new report published this evening, health staff say decarbonising the economy to zero emissions by 2030, 20 years ahead of the government’s target, could create jobs and prevent nearly 14,000 pollution-related deaths annually in Britain.

UK: NHS front line staff ‘unprotected’

Morning Star | March 23, 2020

KEY healthcare workers said they were being sent “like lambs to the slaughter” yesterday and made further pleas for proper protective equipment for NHS staff.

The government has been told to urgently adopt measures to “protect the lives of life-savers” during the coronavirus pandemic, after frequent reports circulated of workers being left without personal protective equipment (PPE).

Health select committee chairman Jeremy Hunt told Sky News yesterday that the NHS has “moved heaven and earth” to get protective equipment to every hospital.

UK: Hands off our wages

by Peter Lazenby

Morning Star | October 22, 2018

UNIONS vowed today to fight plans being cooked up by the Tories for a renewed attack on public-sector wages via the introduction of regional and performance-related pay.

Millions of public-service workers, including NHS staff and local authority workers, could find themselves financially penalised under such plans, which the unions fear will be announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in next week’s Budget.

At 70, the NHS is at a defining crossroads

by Gail Cartmail

Morning Star | February 03, 2018

THE NHS, reeling from a cash crisis caused by the Tory austerity agenda, is at a defining crossroads as it prepares to celebrate its 70th birthday in July.

The NHS needs a massive and immediate cash injection to tide it over the winter crisis, a long-term funding plan to meet soaring demand in the decades ahead and a coherent, well-funded strategy that ensures that health and social care are neatly woven together.