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A wave of industrial action will intensify in the UK on Wednesday as Royal Mail workers go on strike alongside rail industry workers over pay and employment conditions.
Consumers have been warned to brace for late deliveries of Christmas gifts amid action by postal workers, while commuters are struggling with travel disruptions due to a strike by rail workers.
On Thursday, the first nationwide strike by NHS nurses organized by the Royal College of Nursing is to go ahead over pay. UK nursing chiefs urged the union to do more to protect patient safety during the walkout.
Other industrial action in the UK’s “winter of discontent” included ambulance drivers, Border Force officers and Highways Agency staff.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Cabinet on Tuesday that he would not back down. “While the government will do everything we can to minimize disruption, the only way we can prevent it completely is for the unions to go around the table and call off this strike,” he said.
Downing Street said pay restraint was necessary to “get a grip on inflation”.
Industrial action over pay and working conditions by Royal Mail workers, led by the Communication Workers Union, first erupted over the summer and now includes a four-day walkout before Christmas. The CWU has approximately 115,000 Royal Mail worker members.
Analysts warned that the company had raised its pay offer from 2 per cent since the summer to a “final and best offer” of 9 per cent over 18 months, although a resolution appeared distant despite changes to employment conditions.
Commuters were hit on Tuesday as thousands of members of the RMT and TSSA rail unions walked out in their latest strike over pay and changes to working arrangements involving train companies and Network Rail, the infrastructure operator.
Four days of industrial action this week will keep only 20 per cent of services running.
RMT leader Mick Lynch said on Tuesday there was no deal “in sight”, but said he hoped fresh talks with the rail industry could help “develop proposals that our members can support”.
On Monday, RMT members voted to reject Network Rail’s pay and reform package, which would see pay rise by 9 per cent over two years.
But some railway executives privately considered it a relatively close result, with 63.6 percent rejecting the offer. TSSA has urged members to accept a similar deal.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper told GB News the unions were losing public sympathy. “I think people are coming around to seeing what we have to offer is reasonable,” he said.
The UK’s biggest container port of Felixstowe said on Tuesday that striking workers had voted to accept a pay deal of £1,000 plus an 8.5 per cent increase from January.
Meanwhile, Dame Ruth May, England’s chief nursing officer, has written to Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, urging the union to do more to protect patients during walkouts scheduled for this Thursday and Tuesday next week.
In her letter, May urged the RCN to ensure it is taking steps to “remove unnecessary suffering for patients” caught up in the strike. The letter was also signed by the chief nursing officers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Industrial action looks set to go ahead after talks between Health Secretary Steve Barclay and Cullen collapsed on Monday.
Barclay refused to discuss the RCN’s demand for a 19 per cent pay rise for nurses, although Downing Street said the health secretary’s door was “still open” to negotiations on issues such as rosters and leave.
The industrial action will affect more than 60 NHS trusts in England and Wales and a further 11 in Northern Ireland.
The RCN has agreed to exempt many departments and services from industrial action, including chemotherapy, dialysis and pediatric intensive care.
The union has also agreed that Christmas Day levels of service will be offered in adult accident and emergency departments.
The RCN hit back at May’s letter, saying it was “already out of date” after a number of additional agreements were made with senior doctors to secure services, including emergency cancer treatment.
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