Nurses Strike -Do you support? What will it look like?

GrannyRose15

Casdon

GrannyRose15

Lower paid staff get less than a shelf stacker in tescos but yet have so much responsibility."

This is simply not true.

Starting salary for nurses is £27055

Shelf stackers in Tesco's get paid £10 per hour equating to a maximum of £20800. With far less generous benefits.

Pedalling mis-information doesn't help the argument.

£20,270 is the starting salary for a healthcare support worker aka auxiliary nurse GrannyRose15. So yes, they do get paid less than shelf stackers in Tesco - and of course carry a lot more responsibility.

I thought we were talking about nurses.

They are nurses? They aren’t graduates, but they are bedside nurses, and they receive a considerable amount of training and take responsibility.

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

Spotted in our local Aldi, they are recruiting staff starting pay minimum £12.50 an hour. That’s £2 ph over minimum rate, making a big difference to a wage packet.
You can’t blame poorly paid nhs staff considering a move. They will be a great loss, but well done to Aldi raising the stakes.

pascal30

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

They call themselves nursing auxiliaries - we are splitting hairs here, they are better qualified and do a more difficult role than shelf stackers in Tescos, but are paid less. That can’t be right.

Casdon. I agree about the work, I was just pointing out the difference in role names..

Casdon

In any argument it is good to know what you are arguing about. Unless of course you want to deliberately mislead. My comments have been about qualified nurses.
If you want to include unqualified auxiliaries in the discussion that's your prerogative, but you have to make it clear that that is what you are doing, and not try to pretend that we are talking about the same thing.

Casdon

pascal30

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

They call themselves nursing auxiliaries - we are splitting hairs here, they are better qualified and do a more difficult role than shelf stackers in Tescos, but are paid less. That can’t be right.

No, I don't believe we are splitting hairs. I agree with GrannyRose. In the same way, TAs aren't teachers.

Is this a first, growstuff? Us in agreement.

👀

Very apt, Wwmk2.

But until the populace really takes on board the fact that the government is lying to us about the state of the economy and starts actively protesting that the NHS is being kept short of funds to properly pay its staff, we'll just go round and round in circles with divisive arguments about whether or not they're worth paying...

IMO the government is either stupid in that it can't see that paying people decently will contribute to the 'growth' they're after, or they are very deliberately running down the NHS...

I absolutely do not support strike action.
I support a claim for a reasonable increase in salary, but not using strike action as a weapon; it is using patients' needs as blackmail.
This ties in to the recent discussion about vocation; not to do with working selflessly without pay, but upholding certain principles and duty of care. If that sounds priggish I apologise, but I applied it during my working life as a teacher, despite being an active union member.

I see barristers have quietly got 15%.
Striking is a last resort and the only way people, usually in public service, can get listened to. They have worked for 10 years with no increase, went beyond duty to deal with Covid and all that clapping doesn’t get the mortgage paid or put food on the table.
This 19% is bandied about but I am sure much less would get them back to work, but if there is no discussion between parties it can only be assumed it’s yet another underhand way to grind the nhs down in preparation for a profit seeking American system to be pushed on us. Now that does fill me with fear.

I see BT staff are being offered about 16%. Do the Tories think telephone engineers are worth more than nurses and railway workers?