RCN rejects NI pay offer, while other unions vote in favour

Following the restoration of Stormont, health workers in NI were offered a 5% pay increase and lump sum of £1,505.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has rejected a pay offer for its members in Northern Ireland.

Unite, Unison and a number of other trade unions representing midwives, radiographers and physiotherapists, voted to accept.

It comes after industrial action over pay levels falling behind colleagues across the rest of the UK.

Following the restoration of Stormont, health workers in NI were offered a 5% pay increase and lump sum of £1,505.

The pay settlement is for the financial year 2023/24 and is to be backdated to April 2023.

In a statement, Health Minister Robin Swann and the Department of Health (DoH) welcomed the "decisive outcome" of trade union ballots on the pay offer tabled in February.The DoH said that they will now move to implement the offer.

RCN says pay offer 'fell short'

The director of RCN in Northern Ireland, Rita Devlin, said the union's members voted by 55.85% to 44.15% to reject the offer.

Ms Devlin said the offer "fell short of pay parity with colleagues in England", adding "our members in Northern Ireland will not tolerate being treated unequally and unfairly".

The RCN said it was "disappointing" that they could not reach an offer that is equal to others.

The union said that it has advised Mr Swann of the result of its ballot and the RCN remains in dispute about the pay offer.

This result is hardly surprising - the RCN in Northern Ireland was the first to strike over pay in the UK in 2019.

Its stance then was defiant and has remained the same since.

It argued that throughout the political turmoil in Northern Ireland RCN members have kept hospitals afloat - like they did during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The RCN has said that it has been disappointing that the union couldn't reach a pay offer that's equal to others in the UK.

The problem is that, compared to 2020, this time the union is vying for an uplift alongside so many other public-sector workers.

Meanwhile, a number of other health worker unions voted to accept the pay offer.

'Historic win for workers'

Unite the union said this was a "historic win for workers" with 81% of its members voting to accept the offer.

The union pledged "to continue efforts to secure legal protections for safe staffing".

General secretary Sharon Graham welcomed the outcome, saying she was "very proud" of the role Unite members had played.

Unison, which represents thousands of health workers, said 29,000 of its members voted 77.2% to 22.8% in favour of the offer.

The union said they will now move to get this pay uplift with retrospection and the non-consolidated lump sum "into their members pockets as quickly as possible".

Healthcare workers were among those who took part in a mass strike action in Northern Ireland earlier this year over pay

Members of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) also voted to accept the offer made by the DoH, with 86.3% voting in favour.

Karen Murray, director of RCM Northern Ireland, paid tribute to members, saying their "resilience over the past few years has been stretched to the limit"."We all want to move forward and work together to bring about the improvements to maternity services that women and families and the staff who care for them deserve," she said.

Ms Murray said "rebuilding trust" will now be vital and she looks forward to working with the minister to make that happen.

Members of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) working for Health and Social Care Northern Ireland voted 84% in favour of the pay offer.

Senior negotiating officer Claire Ronald said the CSP "will continue to make the case for the government to tackle the workforce crisis by paying members a fair and decent wage".

She added they will "wait to see what the offer is for 2024/25".

The Society of Radiographers returned a 73% vote from their members in favour of the offer.

Cora Regan, the national officer for the Northern Ireland branch of the union, said the response "does not reflect genuine enthusiasm for the offer, nor does it suggest that it meets the needs of our members in Northern Ireland".

Ms Regan said "long-term budget planning for health" was required, adding that there should be a "priority on investing in workforce recruitment and retention".