Nurses will start voting on Thursday (October 6) on whether to strike over pay amid warnings that record numbers are leaving the profession.
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 showed that pay for nurses has 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 per cent 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.
