Latest news with #workingconditions
BBC News
11 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Bin collection strikes in Wrexham amid pay and hours dispute
Refuse workers in Wrexham will be striking this month in a dispute over working patterns and reduced of the Unite union who work in the street scene operation team at Wrexham council are pushing back against changes to overtime hours which see them given compulsory Saturday strikes, voted for by 71% of about 100 workers involved in the dispute, will take place on 23 and 30 August, 6, 13, 20 and 27 September, 4, 11, 18, and 25 October and 1, 8 and 14 union said the action was "completely [the council's] fault" for "targeting lower paid staff".Wrexham council has been contacted for comment. The dispute comes after Wrexham council changed the way workers were given staff were given additional days off over Christmas and could volunteer to work the council later introduced compulsory Saturday work and threatened workers with disciplinary action if they do not attend, Unite said, adding the move was taken without any consultation with workers or the changes also mean Unite members' pay will be reduced for overtime, following several years of below inflation pay rises as well as this year's below-inflation offer to local authority workers of 3.2 %, the union regional officer Simon Ellis said: "We know residents of Wrexham will be concerned about bin strikes, but this is completely the fault of the local council and their unacceptable behaviour towards their staff."Our hardworking members are not asking for extra pay, this dispute is all about protecting their agreed overtime remuneration and working hours."Wrexham council cannot keep targeting lower paid staff and must roll back on these unfair plans and come back to the table."
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Bin workers in Wrexham to strike over pay
Another bin workers' strike is being held in a second dispute over pay and working conditions. Members of Unite in Wrexham, north Wales, will walk out on August 23 and 30, September 6, 13, 20 and 27, October 4, 11, 18, and 25, and November 1, 8 and 14. It comes as Unite members in Birmingham have been in an all-out strike for months that led to piles of rubbish gathering on its streets. Unite said Wrexham Council had changed the way workers were given overtime. Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said: 'No worker should ever be expected to accept forced-through changes to their working patterns or to lose out on hard-earned pay. 'Wrexham Council has behaved disgracefully and any industrial action is completely their fault. 'Unite will always fully support our members who are looking to protect their pay and workplace conditions all the way.' Birmingham City Council was forced to declare a major incident after bin workers walked out indefinitely on March 11, having taken strike action intermittently throughout January and February. The Birmingham dispute began with the scrapping of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer role, which Unite claimed amounted to a £8,000 pay cut for 170 staff. Recycling services are still suspended and the council estimates the strike has already cost £4 million. A junior minister previously accused Unite, which contributes hundreds of thousands of pounds to Labour MPs and party headquarters, of holding the city to ransom. Speaking to the BBC, Preet Kaur Gill, a Labour frontbencher and one of Birmingham's 10 MPs, said: 'There has got to always be a negotiated settlement in the end and so I think Unite has got to call an end to the strike. 'We have seen the level of misery being caused to residents in our city. It is not right that a small number of people are holding 1.2 million residents to ransom.' Angela Rayner was forced to draft in the army to help with the strikes in April. A government spokesman previously said: 'The Government has already provided a number of staff to support the council with logistics and make sure the response on the ground is swift to address the associated public health risks. 'In light of the ongoing public health risk, a small number of office-based military personnel with operational planning expertise have been made available to Birmingham City Council to further support in this area. 'This builds on a range of measures we've supported the council on to date – including neighbouring authorities providing additional vehicles and crews, and opening household waste centres to Birmingham residents.'
Telegraph
a day ago
- Health
- Telegraph
Disgruntled doctors should stop wasting their time striking
Like many NHS doctors, I have seriously considered moving abroad in search of better working conditions. It was therefore no surprise to read the recent report from the General Medical Council (GMC), highlighting that 43 per cent of UK doctors have explored career opportunities overseas. Reportedly, 15 per cent of these doctors have taken 'hard steps' towards leaving UK practice. I have taken these very steps – attending interviews in Australia, visiting schools for my children, and exploring different neighbourhoods. For the time being, family commitments have led me to remain in the UK. According to the GMC report, one in eight (12 per cent) of doctors are considering leaving the UK to work abroad, with nearly one in five (19 per cent) said to be considering quitting the profession altogether. Of course, there is always a gulf between stated intentions and ultimate actions. But the question still remains: why are UK medics so unhappy? Hot on the heels of recent junior doctor strike action, these statistics are yet another reminder of the precarious state of the nation's health service. Many doctors find their working conditions unsustainable and are disillusioned by the substandard care they are forced to deliver to patients. So much so many will choose to leave friends and loved ones, moving ten thousand miles across the globe, in order to work in better resourced hospitals and GP surgeries (where they also receive better pay). Australia – the main beneficiary of the NHS's failure to retain its medical trainees – naturally welcomes British doctors: with streamlined pathways for GPs to relocate, and recruitment agents advertising at picket lines outside NHS hospitals. The exodus of UK doctors from the NHS has been celebrated by Nicole Higgins, the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. She has stated: 'They've made a huge difference to rural and regional Australia… to our workforce as a whole.' I have been told by friends that in some Australian hospitals, at least half of the doctors in the emergency departments are British-trained, NHS escapees. The 'brain drain' of doctors leaving the NHS is estimated to cost the UK taxpayer billions of pounds annually; it is a symptom of a health service on its knees. It goes without saying that Streeting and Starmer need to get a grip on the retention of the UK's medical workforce. However, ongoing disputes between the government and the British Medical Association suggest there is no treaty on the horizon. The irony is that many of the doctors who choose to emigrate to Australia continue to support the founding principles of the NHS; despite finding the conditions in the UK intolerable, and preferring to work in a mixed public-private health care system that is primarily funded through health insurance. Arguably, disgruntled British doctors should stop wasting their time striking for higher pay and start demanding root and branch reform of the NHS. International comparisons suggest they would be able to deliver higher quality healthcare while potentially standing to benefit from better pay and conditions. Yet the ideological hold the NHS has on the population, successive governments, and doctors past and present, means that these arguments rarely gain any traction. Instead British doctors lament the 'underfunding' of the NHS while complaining about poor pay and unsafe patient care. The Labour Government find themselves struggling to square the circle of providing a universal, state-funded healthcare system which does not bankrupt the public finances. Meanwhile, the Australians look on in bemusement and rub their hands in glee.
Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Times
Fifth of NHS doctors are sick of working in the UK
One in five NHS doctors say they are considering quitting or moving abroad in pursuit of better pay and working conditions. The belief that doctors are 'treated better' overseas is the main factor driving them to countries such as Australia and Canada, according to a report by the General Medical Council (GMC). Its annual survey, of a representative sample of nearly 5,000 doctors, found that two thirds of those considering moving abroad also wanted higher pay. The report also found high levels of frustration with training. One in three doctors said they were struggling to progress in their careers because of a lack of NHS training posts. Overall, 19 per cent of doctors were considering leaving work in the UK. Forty-three per cent told the GMC that they had researched career opportunities abroad and 15 per cent said they had taken 'hard steps', such as applying for roles overseas or contacting recruiters. • BMA in new row as thousands of junior doctors cannot get NHS jobs Charlie Massey, chief executive of the GMC, said: 'Like any profession, doctors who are disillusioned with their careers will start looking elsewhere.' The report added: 'We must be alive to the ongoing risks to retention of doctors and the impact of losing talented staff. This could threaten government ambitions to reduce waiting times and deliver better care to patients.' Billy Palmer, a senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust think tank, said: 'Pay and industrial action have been a lightning rod for dissatisfaction among doctors but this survey puts a spotlight on the wider difficulties facing the medical profession. Job guarantees, better rotas and placements and protection of training time need to be on the table.' The GMC has said that the government's pledge to cut hospital waiting lists is at risk unless more is done to retain doctors. The Department of Health said: 'The findings in this report are further evidence of what we know — that after more than a decade of neglect, doctors have legitimate complaints about their conditions, including issues with training bottlenecks and career progression. 'This government is committed to improving career opportunities and working conditions, bringing in ways to recognise and reward talent — as well as freeing up clinicians' time by cutting red tape.' • 'Junior doctors are right to be unhappy with NHS' Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, held a five-day strike last month in pursuit of a 29 per cent pay rise. On Tuesday they met Wes Streeting, the health secretary, for talks described as 'constructive', at which the British Medical Association agreed no strikes would be called this month. Streeting said: 'Following a constructive meeting with BMA residents reps, we've agreed a window for negotiations without strikes in August to see if a resolution can be reached. 'Let's see if we can build a spirit of partnership to build an NHS that works for patients and staff alike.' Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan, the BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs, said: 'We met with Mr Streeting to once again reiterate what is needed to bring this dispute to an end. We were very clear about the determination of resident doctors to return to a fair level of pay. 'Our conversation was informative and we feel that we have achieved a greater mutual understanding than in previous talks. We have agreed a window for negotiations, which we hope the government will use wisely.' However, they stressed that 'there has to be movement on pay' for the dispute to end.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Nostalgia and selective memory are clouding judgment on doctors' strikes
I write in response to Prof David Cameron (Letters, 28 July). I also trained as a doctor during the 80s and early 90s and experienced the long working hours of that time. It is easy to fall into the trap of nostalgia and selective memory as we become older and detached from the frontline. I was looked after by the hospitals in which I worked, which were less managed than they are today. I worked in a close team, led by a consultant to whom I was responsible, and who was responsible for me. I spoke to no managers. I was provided accommodation, hot food day and night, and other privileges. I speak to many young doctors in my current workplace and see the conditions in which they work. They are isolated and harassed by managers, who are in turn harassed by a target-driven culture. Their training is politicised and diluted by the physician assistant programme. They cannot get hot food after 4pm or at weekends, they pay for parking, they are ripped off by hospital accommodation services and see their pay eroded by below-inflation awards over many years. Small wonder they are angry. Pay is the quickest way by which they can obtain some redress for the deterioration in working conditions which they have Robin HollandsConsultant, Shrewsbury As a foundation year 1 (FY1) doctor who has nearly completed my first year of medical training, I have been deeply disheartened by the discourse around the resident doctor strikes. The British Medical Association (BMA) has failed to properly advocate for changes that will improve the working lives of doctors and the media has unsurprisingly been intensely critical of the BMA's current objectives. It was exceptionally generous for the government to provide us with a 22% pay rise last year, but the BMA's current demands for a further 29% are totally unrealistic and appear tone deaf to the many other public sector workers who have received much less. It is therefore not surprising that many media outlets have agreed that we are 'greedy'. Despite this, I believe the strikes are a representation of a much deeper dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs for resident doctors and this needs to be addressed. Resident doctors across the country are often working extensive hours on understaffed, dysfunctional hospital wards, with now ever-diminishing prospects of career progression. The latest BMA figures that 52% of FY2 doctors have no secure employment from August is deeply shocking and is a failure of the system that may threaten the future of the NHS. It is time that both the BMA and the government woke up to the reality that there will be a severe doctor unemployment crisis unless urgent action is taken. This is the real problem that needs to be addressed. Pay restoration should absolutely remain a long-term goal, but there is little point improving my current resident doctor salary if there are no future pathways for resident doctors in the Will GiffinSheffield Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
