MORE than 50,000 health workers are being balloted on strike action in a dispute over pay for NHS staff.
Unison is balloting health workers in Scotland after the 5 per cent increase offered by Health Secretary Humza Yousaf was rejected.
The union said it is the first time since devolution that health workers have been balloted for strike action over pay.
Unison's recent consultative ballot saw a rejection of the Scottish Government's 5 per cent pay offer with more than 80 per cent voting in favour of industrial action.
Unison Scotland’s health committee said the pay offer is a “real-terms pay cut” and is recommending that members vote for strikes.
Wilma Brown, chairwoman of Unison Scotland’s health committee, said: “These are unprecedented times and NHS staff are struggling to make ends meet.
“The Scottish Government’s pay offer is nowhere near enough and leaves everyone in the NHS worse off. It’s a real-terms pay cut across every single NHS salary band.
“We’re in the biggest cost-of-living and NHS staffing crisis in history and yet the Scottish Government want hard-working health workers to accept a real-terms pay cut.”
The ballot opened today and runs until October 31.
Matt McLaughlin, Unison Scotland’s head of health, said: “Ministers need to understand the anger of health staff who are working in an underfunded, understaffed NHS.
“It’s already an extremely stressful environment without having to worry about how you will pay your bills and feed your family.
“Nobody wants to take strike action but without an improved pay offer, our members will be left with no choice.”
Mr Yousaf said: “Any ballot for industrial action is disappointing.
“We are engaged with health unions and I hope we can come to an agreement on pay in the near future.
“This work continues in the context of our Emergency Budget Review following the UK Government’s fiscal event.”
Ballots on possible strike action are being held in 21 health boards but this does not include the Western Isles.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel