A wave of further teacher, ambulance and civil servant strikes is likely to continue this week as nurses prepare for their second major period of strike action.
While ministers signaled a new deal could be close with rail unions, strikes looked set to escalate in other sectors as ministers prepared to introduce controversial new anti-strike legislation to the House of Commons on Monday.
Royal College of Nursing nurses will strike on Wednesday and Thursday, with the union warning that more members across England will next strike in early February if there is no strike by the end of the month.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen described the Prime Minister’s position on their impasse as “confusing, reckless and politically ill-advised”. Health Ministry sources said no talks were currently planned, but they still hoped for more meetings after discussions broke down bitterly last week.
Meanwhile, the National Education Union (NEU) and school leaders’ union NAHT are expected to announce the outcome of the pay strike vote on Monday.
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Mary Boustead, general secretary of the NEU, told Times Radio that she was “confident based on our own internal surveys of our members that we will reach the voting threshold, but the only vote that matters is the one counted by the independent polling company and we’ll know that right before we make the announcement to members tomorrow afternoon”.
Also in the teaching sector, the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) will stage strike action for 16 consecutive days until February 2, with members of two local authorities on strike each day. London Bus Transport workers at Abellio are on strike on Monday and Wednesday.
Industrial tensions have also been inflamed by the government’s proposed anti-strikes bill, which will have its first reading in the House of Commons on Monday.
The TUC, the co-ordinating body for trade unions, accused the government of being “vicious” with the legislation and trying to “spin” through draconian new measures without proper consultation or scrutiny.
The organization said it would mean that when workers vote to strike in health, education, firefighting, transportation, border security and nuclear decommissioning, they could be forced to work and fired if they don’t comply.
The FDA’s Senior Civil Servants Union will reveal the result of its strike vote by fast-track graduates early this week, and about 300 members of the PCS union in the court and tribunal service are poised to strike on Saturday. GMB leaders will meet on Monday to decide whether to call further ambulance strikes, with talks currently at a standstill.
With so many strikes in the pipeline, the sector that seemed closest to a deal was rail. Mark Harper, the transport minister, confirmed on Sunday that he had given a “new mandate” to operating companies to discuss pay alongside reforms with rail unions, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the long-running dispute.
He told Sky News: “The train companies have been given permission by me to make a new offer to the rail unions. “That’s what they’re going to do. This is what I was asked to do, this is my role in the process.”
The TUC is coordinating a day of strike action on 1 February to protest the legislation. Around 100,000 civil servants, members of the PCS union, are likely to take action on the day.
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