Activist training for nurses to mobilise for strike action

It has been reported that up to 25,000 nurses are training to become activists to help Britain’s nursing union force the Prime Minister to improve the current one per cent NHS pay offer.

The Guardian reports that the Royal College of Nursing hopes the move will help it achieve a turnout of 50 per cent in the strike ballot it has pledged to call if ministers continue to resist calls for a bigger increase.

Jane McAlevey, who has helped nurses in the United States to unionise and win better terms and conditions for 25 years, will be enlisted to teach 25,000 frontline NHS nurses how to become effective advocates, with the RCN hoping that the nurses would become an ‘army of activists’ that would help rouse its 475,000-strong membership to vote in a ballot, and undertake local campaigns to win public support.

The RCN is pressing for a 12.5 per cent pay rise for all nurses.

Dave Dawes, chair of the RCN’s ruling council, said: “If we are going to be balloting for industrial action later this year, which looks increasingly likely, this training will make a huge difference in what the turnout of the ballot will be.

“If it’s up to the members whether or not we take industrial action, actually if you don’t get 50 per cent of the members to vote, it’s dead in the water under trade union law. No nurse wants to do industrial action. But if you’re going to do it and successfully, you need to have the majority of the workforce on your side and you need to have the majority of the public understanding what this is about.”