The Scottish Ambulance Service and hospitals across the country could be brought to their knees after GMB union members voted to take strike action over pay.
Paramedics, ambulance technicians and nurses at some of the country’s largest health boards voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action over pay.
The union's ambulance workers voted 89 per cent in favour of action along with 98 per cent of members in Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, 97 per cent in Lanarkshire, 94 per cent in Forth Valley, and 88 percent in Lothian.
Around 2.5 million people live in the areas covered by the health board areas which have voted to strike.
It means almost 4,000 GMB members including porters, domestics, and radiographers as well as nurses and ambulance workers have a legal mandate to participate in strike action.
It follows a month-long ballot of the union’s 8,000 members across NHS Scotland and associated services as the dispute between staff unions and the Scottish Government over the 2022/23 pay offer continues.
The Scottish Government had offered a five per cent wage rise to all members of staff but tabled an improved offer to up the percentages for the lowest paid workers.
GMB Scotland Organiser Karen Leonard said: “This a direct response from our members to the government that more must be done to properly value NHS workers and the services they deliver, not just to confront the cost-of-living crisis this winter, but also to tackle the understaffing crisis in our frontline services that’s left staff utterly exhausted and increasingly angry.
“The understaffing crisis in particular has been understood for years and left unchallenged, only for Covid-19 to expose and exacerbate the chronic shortfalls in staffing levels, and no one should be any doubt the only way we can recruit and retain the people needed to kick -start a recovery is to value staff better.
“There should be no surprise in government circles about this clear mandate delivered by our members; their strike threat is the inevitable consequence of years of austerity and managed decline in our NHS by political leaders and the unsustainable pressures this has placed on a workforce that everyone depends on.
“But this is also an opportunity for Humza Yousaf to listen to the workers’ voice and bring forward the significantly improved offer that he promised just a few weeks ago, otherwise the country faces the real prospect of strike actions this winter across NHS Scotland and the ambulance service.”
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