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The Conservative Party chairman has said the military is on standby to replace striking workers such as ambulance and border staff, while claiming the planned industrial action is playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands by dividing society.
A UK cabinet minister, Nadeem Zahawi, said the military was part of contingency planning in which troops could be drafted in to replace people on picket lines, as the government prepares for a wave of strikes over low pay in the coming weeks. .
Unions and the Labor Party have expressed frustration that the government is refusing to negotiate on the pay issue while ministers are publicly urging unions to come to the table to avoid strikes.
With inflation running at 11% and ministers refusing to review its 3% pay offer to NHS workers, the Royal College of Nurses has pushed ahead with plans for strike action on 15 and 20 December.
Speaking on Sky News Ridge on Sunday, Zahavi insisted it was up to union leaders to withdraw the strike and suggested they were playing into the Russian president’s agenda as he uses high energy sentiment to fuel inflation as a “weapon” in his war on Ukraine. uses. .
Zahavi said the government needs to show discipline not to increase public sector salaries in line with inflation, which could further fuel inflation.
Urging the unions not to go ahead with strike action, he said: “This is the time to come together and send a very clear message to Mr. Putin that we are not going to be divided like this … Our message to the unions is to say ‘This is not the time to strike, This is the time to try and negotiate’.
However, the GMB union and the Royal College of Nursing have pointed out that Health Secretary Steve Barclay has refused to discuss pay levels at recent meetings, despite his suggestions that an improved but still sub-inflationary pay offer could help avert strike action.
The RCN’s general secretary, Pat Cullen, said: “Steve Barclay is directly responsible for the strike action this month, rejecting my pleas for talks. Nursing staff do not want to live outside their hospital; They want to stay in, feel respected and able to provide safe care to patients.”
The Liberal Democrats said it was “ridiculous and insulting to suggest that Vladimir Putin is responsible for going on strike”.
“The responsibility lies with this Conservative government
A shambolic failure to find a solution,” said Christine Jardine
A spokesman for the Lib Dems’ Cabinet Office.
“Conservative ministers wasted billions of taxpayers’ money on bogus PPE contracts and are now refusing to offer nurses a fair pay rise. It’s a clear demonstration of how out of touch Zahawi and this conservative government really are.”
With no breakthrough yet, Zahavi said the government was planning to bring in military personnel.
“Making contingency plans is the right and responsible thing to do,” Zahavi told Sky News. “We have a very strong team at Cobra who are doing a lot of work looking at what we need to do to minimize disruption to people’s lives.
“We’re looking at the military, we’re looking at the specialist response force that we set up several years ago. We have to make sure that the borders are always secure and we guarantee that. Things like running ambulances and other parts of the public sector – we have to try to minimize disruption.”
Labour’s Bridget Phillipson told the BBC that there needed to be a “fair deal for workers” and there could be no “contractual status without negotiation”.
The shadow secretary of state for education said trade unions were right to “argue about pay and terms and conditions” and that they were “desperate to negotiate and discuss pay”, while ministers were refusing to do so.
Phillipson said there was likely to be a compromise somewhere between the union’s requests and the government’s offer.
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