Problem here is nurses have been undervalued, under supported and underpaid for years. We shouldn’t be in a situation where they’re demanding a 17% pay increase, but we are, because they’ve been treated like unskilled or low skilled workers who actually need a degree and more to qualify yet they’ll have to pay it back as a type of tax after it was loaned to them. Maybe not all of it, but they will be paying it back. It shouldn’t be charged, but if you leave the profession or country within a time period you’re paying it back as normal.

COYP

My wife is a nurse and in her Trust they have voted to strike. We haven't discussed whether, or how, she voted. She is though sympathetic to the demands.

I am not. I don't think anyone should contemplate going on strike at the moment. If anyone achieves an above average settlement that will become the norm and our inflation and debt problems will just get worse.

Of course I am proud of her and the work she does and realise that her pay in real terms has fallen, but this is not the time to try to correct that.

I am particularly angry with the train drivers trying to get a larger share of the cake.

With a cost cutting budget due next week I have no idea what the government will do in response, but this makes me feel really uncomfortable. We are in a recession. In recessions real wages go down. There may well have to be another cap on increases in the public sector.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Well I take my hat off to you WE. Although I thought you may tell your mrs to do one about the pay rise and in not so many words ; indirectly you have . I’m sure she along with 1000s more do a fabulous job but we all have to cut our cloth including hmg.
The train drivers are private sector so tbh it’s up to their employer to iron them out.
I do wonder what a different political party would do atm.

We have had this debate many times on this forum.

Anyone can join a union and if enough do then legally that union is able to represent its members in the workplace.

Unions have been a catalyst for change all over the world reforming T & C's for everyone but I agree thses days they are strongest in but not confined to the public services.

No one takes strike action lightly it comes with consequences and in order to call a strike any union has to ballot and thresholds have to be met. In the PCS ballot today some areas failed to meet thresholds and in them no action can be taken.

If you go on strike you lose pay and pension for the days you are out.

Its up to you if you join a union - the days of the closed shop are long gone. If you do it's up to you if you vote and who you vote for. (Oddly a strike vote has to be postal unlike say a political party voting in anew Prime minister which can be done on line.)

So people feel strong enough to vote for action. Fair play to them and maybe it might just mean as we have seen in the rail strikes a better offer than one which makes those affected poorer year on year.

Not saying BTW that others are not suffering and have not been offered or got low or no pay rises. As a nation we are all suffering right now.

My opinions are formed from limited personal experience. Teachers haven't had an actual pay rise for years. This is true for other sectors of State Workers (though not all of them).
Unions are scrambling to play 'catch-up' on wages where there has been a significant shortfall for many years.
Morale is low in these low-pay sectors. People are leaving to take better paid jobs. There is a lack of people being trained for these places, because they are poorly paid. Therefore, qualification standards of entry are being 'diluted', so inevitably more 5hlt staff are getting through to take these jobs. We've seen it with teachers, nurses and police.
To cover the immediate shortfall in staff, Agencies are being used, whereby expenditure in these areas is rocketing.

I disengage, I turn the page.

Like many on here I was born in 1960, grew up in the South & my formative years were the 70 / 80s - I was aware of the various strikes around that time - Print workers / Coal Power / Car Assembly Workers etc - the power of the unions at that time & the phrase of "holding the country to ransom" was one that was being used on the news every day - "the winter of our discontent" was another phrase often used - as a southerner the coal strikes only really effected me with the power strikes, I didn't live close to any mines & knew no miners, the print was largely up in Wapping & car assembly was in the midlands - even today none of my family are school teachers or nurses so I really dont have a dog in this fight & whilst I fully believe that Unions were needed back in the early days of industrialised Britain when I saw what they did in the 80s in terms of driving those professions towards alternative methods ( i.e less reliant on people (automation) & driven towards countries with lower labour costs) I have to wonder where this current round of talks / strikes etc will end, OK its difficult to replaces nurses, Teachers with the number of lessons held over teams / zoom etc over lockdown & I am not in any way suggesting that should become the norm but you can see where I am going with this - the same with train drivers / signallers, technology already exists to replace them - anyway, as I say I dont have a dog in this fight, just my tuppence worth -