This Thursday, more than 170,000 public sector workers will go on strike in Northern Ireland, bringing the North virtually to a standstill.
Described by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) as “the most significant single day of action for the trade union movement in a generation”, there will be no public transport, schools will be closed, and health services have warned of disruption on a “massive and unprecedented” scale.
The striking unions say they have been left with no choice in their ongoing dispute over pay, and have called on the Northern Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, to release the money – part of a wider package of £3.3 billion (€3.85 billion) which is dependent on a restored Assembly and Executive – and settle the dispute.
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) says public sector pay is a devolved matter and the “fair and generous” package offered by the UK government, “including money to address public sector pay and more than £1 billion to stabilise Northern Ireland’s public services”, remains on the table for an incoming Northern Ireland Executive to take up.
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“The Secretary of State has expressed his disappointment that a new Executive was not up and running to take the offer on the table and deliver it for the people of Northern Ireland before Christmas,” the department said, adding that it was “now for the NI parties to come together, restore the Executive and begin to address the challenges facing the people of Northern Ireland, including public sector pay”.
Six striking workers – a bus driver, a midwife, a teacher, a nurse, a social worker and a further education lecturer – explain why they are on the picket lines.
Deborah Yapicioz, social worker and Unison representative, Co Armagh
“As I’m speaking to you now, outside Craigavon hospital, there are eight ambulances with people in them waiting to be brought into the hospital.
“We’re seeing people in A&E for actual days now... years ago, if you breached the four-hour wait, everybody was horrified, now it’s just firefighting the whole time.
“Health workers in Northern Ireland haven’t received the 2023 pay award that was secured in England, and we are the lowest paid workers across the UK, again.
“We’re on strike for pay parity [with England, Scotland and Wales], we’re on strike for safe staffing levels... [and] to fight against more and more going out to the private sector, we need to keep the NHS and social care within the public sector.
“I work with people with learning disabilities, and resources are just getting less and less.
“We don’t have a devolved government in place at the moment, but the money could be released by Chris Heaton-Harris if he chose to do so.
“We need actions, not words, and I would say to Chris Heaton-Harris, we are ready to fight tooth and nail for our NHS to keep our services in-house, to get safe staffing, and to give our community the service that they require and that they deserve.”
Dorothy McGinley, primary schoolteacher and president of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), Co Tyrone
“I teach in a primary school in Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, and I’ve taught for 38 years. I’m the INTO president of all of Ireland but I also speak on behalf of our very strong membership here in the North.
“In the last 12 years, we have lost up to 30 per cent of our pay. We are now the poorest teachers on these isles – 35 per cent behind our colleagues in Scotland, 27 per cent behind our colleagues in Wales, and 24 per cent behind our colleagues in England.
“We have teachers in our union who are actually going to food banks and are now working two and three jobs. They are working in construction, they are working in bars and restaurants to try to make ends meet. It’s a poor reflection of society when the teachers who are so well qualified are struggling.
“We also have a huge problem with retention and recruitment of teachers, we cannot hold on to teachers. That’s impacting on the education of our children.”
Louise Burton, community midwife and Royal College of Midwifes (RCM) representative, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim
“Public sector workers all over Northern Ireland are just at our wits’ end and, to be honest, it’s insulting the difference between our pay and the next lowest paid midwives in England.
“I don’t understand why we do the same job and yet there’s such a disparity in our pay.
“Midwives are dropping out of the profession due to patient safety, concern for workload, the fact we’re not getting supported, we don’t have the time to do the things we need to do, and the training and then house prices, the cost of living.
“Junior midwives... their pay is awful, they are living out of food banks, and the amount of nurses and midwives who are working extra hours over and above... we are at the mercy of the [UK] government and it’s just taken for granted that we will continue to do our work.
“We don’t want the public to think we’re being greedy, we’re not, we’re looking for fairness, a fair deal, and what we were promised, and the money is there, it just hasn’t been divvied out because Stormont won’t go back in.
“They [the politicians] can fight among themselves but nurses and midwives treat everybody, the whole of the community. We don’t battle over whose opinions are different, we come out and we go to work, and through Covid we went to work, through everything we go to work, and we deserve to be paid for the work that we do.
“If my daughter came to me and said ‘Mum, I want to be a nurse or a midwife,’ it would break my heart to tell her to reconsider, but I would, because that’s not the life you want for your kids.
“If we want to keep safe, effective, well-trained midwives in the post then we need to treat them accordingly.”
Mickey Brady, bus driver and Ulsterbus branch chairman for the GMB union, Newry
“We’re all impacted by the cost of living, and we would have a lot of drivers relying on food banks, as in all walks of life and in all public sectors.
“We were offered a zero per cent pay rise because the government haven’t put the funding in to public transport to pay for it, and with the cost of living, it’s like a pay cut.
“It seems like [Northern Secretary] Chris Heaton-Harris is using the public sector workers as pawns to get the Assembly back up and running, he’s stated the money is there so why isn’t it being released to take the pressure off the working person?
“Do the decent thing and release it, so we can all get back to work.
“None of us want to be out on the picket line, we want to be in doing our job and taking people from A to B, but we felt we have no choice. It’s a last resort.”
Gabriel Keown, further education lecturer and University and Colleges Union (UCU) branch secretary, Enniskillen
“We’re facing unprecedented budget cuts in our six further and higher education colleges and without doubt education is going to suffer if there isn’t some concerted effort.
“We have a lot of staff in a bad financial situation. Staff have more than one job, have part-time jobs or second jobs to basically bring them up to a level where they can afford to pay their mortgage and look after their children.
“Our pay in real terms has suffered a decline of approximately 30 per cent, and we are fighting for the same pay as our UK counterparts.
“Everything we do has been eroded, we’ve had no stable government, we have had no politicians doing the job they’ve been elected to do... and we are being used as political pawns by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Secretary of State, to bring pressure to bear on the DUP to get back to Stormont.
“We, like all the other unions, would call on him to release that pot of money which he has publicly made known is available to pay us, that’s all we’re asking him to do.
“Northern Ireland cannot continue to go on the way it’s going, it’s like on the edge of the abyss now, falling over the cliff and the basic services that are provided for citizens are going to be no more.
“We’re standing up for the rights of our staff, we’re also standing up for the rights of our students and the basic right to be educated and to be educated well. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Kerry French, district nurse, north Belfast
“I am a member of the Royal College of Nursing and we are going out on strike for pay parity with our counterparts in England because we deserve to be paid the same as nurses who are doing the same job with the same skills. We feel extremely frustrated because we’re aware there’s now a pot of money for a pay award.
“Our main problems are staffing issues and retention of staff. We have extremely complex patients coming home, patients who wish to die at home, and patients who previously would have been cared for in hospital but their preferred place of care is now at home.
“The struggle is that we just don’t have enough nurses to physically get round the calls. Staff are working extra shifts and staying after their shifts to cover the basic calls in a day.
“I spoke to a student nurse in our department the other day and her plan when she qualifies is to move to Scotland. She’s convinced her boyfriend to move with her because she can’t afford to stay and nurse in Northern Ireland because the pay is so poor.”
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