Nurses across the country are voting on whether to strike over pay for the first time in history.
Around 300,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are being asked if they want to mount a campaign of industrial action in the union's first UK-wide ballot. The RCN said new analysis by London Economics to coincide with the ballot launch on Thursday showed that pay for nurses had declined at twice the rate of the private sector in the last decade.
Nurses' real-terms earnings have fallen by six per cent compared with 3.2% for private sector employees, it was found. It is the first time in its 106-year history that the RCN has balloted members across the UK on strike action and it is urging them to vote in favour. The ballot closes on November 2.
