HUNDREDS of health care workers across Belfast on Thursday joined thousands of other colleagues across the North in a 48-hour strike over pay and conditions.
Unison, Unite the Union, NIPSA were among the unions on the picket line, as well as members of the Society of Radiographers, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the Royal College of Midwives.
Care and health workers in the North continue to be lower-paid than colleagues in England, Scotland and Wales.
PICKET: Health workers on strike outside RVH
Health care workers in Britain have been offered a pay uplift for 2023-2024 and a below-inflation pay award for 2022-2023 but workers in the North have not been given this due to the North's Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris refusing to implement the payment in a bid to coax the DUP to end their boycott of Stormont.
More health workers out on the picket line this morning at Belfast City Hospital for pay parity and safe staffing! ✊ #JobsPayConditions pic.twitter.com/5xyCYkEc3K
— Unite the Union NI (@UniteunionNI) September 21, 2023
NHS workers in England received a 5 per cent increase in 2022-23 and a one-time payment of £1,655, which workers in the North haven't seen.
Gerard Tohill, Shop Stewart with Unite, who was with workers outside the RVH on the Falls Road, said the strike was over workers here missing out on pay increases and payments made to colleagues in England, Scotland and Wales.
"Workers in England were paid out around £1600 and a got a 5 per cent increase and they won't implement that here," he said. "The civil servants are saying there isn't enough money in the budget to pay it and to pay it they'll have to make cuts elsewhere, including cutting school dinners, free transport for the elderly and water charges.
"We're already underpaid and this is going to be another tax by stealth. We're hammered as it is and we're going to get hammered further with these cuts. The money is there in central government in England and they have the ability to pay it if they choose to but Heaton-Harris is just playing politics to try and get the DUP back into Stormont.
"MLAs have had a percentage of their wages deducted but it's still a drop in the ocean. At the end of the day MLAs may say they're still doing constituency work but you can't get laws passed, you can't implement anything unless you're sitting down on the hill. Until they all get back and sort it out we're all stuck here."
PICKET: Workers on strike outside RVH on the Falls Road
Gerard added: "We have all types of health care workers here including nursing staff, Unite are manning the gate on the Falls Road, Unison are manning the gates on the Grosvenor Road. Unison are bringing out their workers in two stages. Nurses are out today with clerical workers tomorrow. We have all our workers out at the one time.
"We will respond in an emergency if it's a life or limb situation. We've never left the hospital in any peril."
