The nurses are back on the picket line. Nursing staff in Northern Ireland faced freezing temperatures of -6C this week as they made their case for their country’s pay freeze.
But the real problem is not the cold wave that is hitting the UK this week, but the freeze in political activity, which will not help ease the pressures of winter.
Nurses from Unison, Unite and the Royal College of Nursing, which represent all health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland, went on strike to demand equal pay with their UK colleagues.
They joined other public sector colleagues in a day of mass industrial action, said to be the largest strike in Northern Ireland’s recent history.
The fundamental problem, of course, is that there is no functioning parliament in Stormont after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) withdrew from power-sharing in February 2022 in protest of post-Brexit trade checks.
DUP leaders will meet today, Friday 19 January, to decide whether to make a final return and end the impasse.
Over the past 18 months, Northern Ireland has seen multiple failed attempts to restore devolved government – seven in fact. Let’s see what happens this time.
However, it is certain that things cannot continue like this. Last year, the civil service was forced to spend money from a budget set by the UK government, but no new funding decisions could be made.
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has proposed a £3.3bn package that includes funding to resolve public sector pay claims, but that will depend on the DUP returning to Stormont.
“RCN Northern Ireland leader Pat Cullen led union members to strike in 2019 for the first time in the union’s history.”
He faced strong criticism from nurses on the picket lines, who claimed he was being used as a pawn by ministers to sway the DUP.
Nurse Edel Coulter told Nursing Times: Nurses should not be used as leverage in some kind of political chess game. ”
In the current rapidly changing situation, as well as the DUP conference, the Northern Ireland Secretary said today that he would introduce new legislation to address the political impasse in the country.
Mr Heaton-Harris said his proposed legislation would help Northern Ireland’s departments address the “immediate and clear challenges we face in stabilizing public services and public finances”.
It is not clear at this point what these proposals will be, but some hope they will include a serious attempt to prevent another round-the-clock strike by 150,000 public sector workers. Dew.
But that’s not the only reason to melt the ice at Stormont. As well as pay, a dysfunctional parliament could impede other policies affecting nurses in Northern Ireland.
For example, the country’s chief nursing officer, Maria McIlgorm, recently spoke to Nursing Times about her workforce plans and broader ambitions for nursing. Such plans work better if they have funding.
But what’s actually driving people to the picket lines is the pay situation. Bernadette Officer, an endoscopy nurse in Belfast, said nurses were desperate for a pay rise due to the rising cost of living.
“Our bills are going up, but our salaries aren’t going up,” she told Nursing Times senior reporter Ella Devereux. This time last year, nurses in England and Wales were doing the same thing for the same reasons.
And let’s not forget that it was in Northern Ireland that the touchpaper was lit for industrial action brought by colleagues in other parts of the UK in 2022-2023.
Then, in 2019, RCN Northern Ireland leader Pat Cullen led members to go on strike for the first time in the union’s history. Union members won legislation for better wages and safe staffing levels.
Their actions forced members of Congress, who had once again been suspended due to political disagreements, to return and formulate proposals. Pat returned this week to join Pickett’s line.
In a message to members on the eve of the strike, she said: “It was your sheer determination and dedication to patients that brought our executives back here in January 2020.
“What is happening to nurses in Northern Ireland is immoral. We have once again seen their pay lower than nurses in the rest of the UK,” she added.
Northern Ireland’s nurses, midwives and other HSC staff deserve a break. Paying a salary on par with colleagues in other parts of the UK is certainly fair and not an unreasonable expectation.
The complex political situation in Northern Ireland will undoubtedly always be frosty to some degree, but the coming days and weeks should thaw enough for local HSC staff to regain hope.
They’ve done it before, and if anyone can do it, perhaps nurses and their health service colleagues can encourage some form of power-sharing to resume. Nursing Times hopes so.