A nurse who became the face of a 1980s pay dispute with Margaret Thatcher has thrown her support behind NHS workers threatening to strike today.
Shirley Lawson was just 19 when a picture of her furiously berating the then Prime Minister in Glasgow galvanised public support for thousands of low paid staff in the health service.
And after the Sunday Mail tracked her down to Italy, the married mum of two condemned “40 years of taking NHS workers for granted” and made clear she would “100 per cent” be on the frontline of the dispute again.
Thousands of ambulance staff and other health service employees last week voted to reject a government pay deal and are threatening to walk out unless a better offer is tabled.
Scottish nurses are voting on a deal in a ballot which closes tomorrow in the hope of avoiding industrial action that could cripple the NHS over Christmas.
Mum-of-two Shirley, 60, said: “The government know that they have nurses by the b***s, if you excuse the phrase, because they know they will never leave their patients completely without care.
“NHS staff will never let hospitals close down because they are too professional for that. It is for that very reason that they have been taken for granted all these years and underpaid for their work.
“If you look at that picture of me back in the 1980s you can see a badge I’m wearing is demanding a 12 per cent pay rise. It was really a very small amount when you considered the wages we were being paid but we didn’t get it – and I doubt the NHS workers will get what they are asking for now.
“Being a nurse is more than a job, it is your life, and there is not a single nurse who will want to strike, I know that. They are being forced into this to try to protect the service, which is losing staff and because they are no longer being paid enough to live.
“People banged their pots, cheered and clapped because they knew the NHS was bearing the brunt of the pandemic. The government promised as soon as it was all over nurses would be treated fairly but they got nothing.
“Nobody goes into nursing for the money.
“It’s long hard training and it’s long hard hours, but there’s no job like it for job satisfaction. But nurses and other NHS staff deserve enough to have a decent life.
“I’m not going to get into commenting on the Scottish Government or UK Government specifically because I don’t live there any more, but all governments have taken NHS workers for granted for decades.
“It is depressing to see workers fighting the same battle that I was fighting all those years ago.”
Shirley captured the nation’s attention when she was pictured furiously pointing at Thatcher during a visit to Glasgow. In full nurses uniform, she was wearing a “We Need 12%” badge and holding an “End Low Pay In The NHS” placard.
The award-winning picture, published in our sister paper the Daily Record 40 years ago highlighted the fury within the health service towards the Tory government of the day.
It also changed teenager Shirley’s life overnight. Within hours of the Record hitting the streets the Hamilton-born trainee was being offered modelling jobs.
It kickstarted a career that took her around the world and she eventually ended up living in Dubai for several years where she launched a photography business.
The mum of two now lives in rural Italy with her husband where they keep horses and she travels around the world on shoots.
She added: “Life definitely moved off in a very different direction but I don’t think you ever stop being a nurse at heart and I still describe myself as a nurse today.
“If I was back in Scotland I would 100 per cent be out demonstrating for better pay and conditions, I back the workers completely.”
The GMB union – which represents NHS ambulance staff, nurses, porters and radiographers – last week voted to reject an improved NHS pay deal from the Scottish Government.
It said two-thirds of its members voted to turn down the improved offer, which would have seen workers receive an average 7.5 per cent pay uplift.
The GMB had suspended a planned 26-hour ambulance strike last month and put the new offer to members in a vote.
It has more than 8000 members in the NHS and its associated services, including 1700 in the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Members of Unite and Unison voted to accept the offer last week and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is currently voting on the offer.
Nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are currently striking in the largest action of its kind in NHS history.
Staff have said they will continue to provide “life-preserving” treatment and some urgent care, but routine surgery and other treatment will be disrupted.
The RCN’s ballot of its members in Scotland closes tomorrow but it is unknown when the result will be announced.
A spokesperson said the new deal “still does not meet our members’ expectations” and added that there was a “clear mandate for strike action”.
The RCN had called for a pay deal at least five per cent above inflation, which reached 10.7 per cent in November.
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