Ambulance Workers To Vote On Possible Strike Action
Written by HFM News on 24th October 2022
Ambulance workers in the region have started voting on whether to strike over pay.
Staff from East Midlands Ambulance Service are among 11 trusts in England and Wales taking part in the ballot, organised by the GMB Union.
If they back it, industrial action would take place before Christmas and mean ambulances would not go to any call-outs, unless they are deemed life-threatening.
Workers are angry over the Government’s 4% pay award, claiming it is yet another real-term pay cut on top of already “unsafe” staffing levels across the ambulance service.
Rachel Harrison, GMB acting national secretary, said: “Ambulance workers don’t do this lightly – and this would be the biggest ambulance strike for 30 years.
“But more than ten years of pay cuts, plus the cost-of-living crisis, means workers can’t make ends meet. They are desperate.
“But this is much more about patient safety at least as much about pay. Delays up to 26 hours and 135,000 vacancies across the NHS mean a third of GMB ambulance workers think a delay they’ve been involved with has led to a death. Ambulance workers have been telling the Government for years things are unsafe. No one is listening. What else can they do?”
The vote will close on November 29.
