Hundreds of health and education workers in Derry strike for better pay and conditions

Members of the health unions UNISON, NIPSA, UNITE CSP, Royal College of Midwives, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Society and College of Radiographers, and the GMB, began strike action on Thursday.

Unite Regional Officer Brenda Stevenson said: “We are seeing increasing numbers of radiographers, hospital pharmacists and laboratory scientists joining Unite to take part in the strike action.

“Strike action is always a very difficult choice for health workers to have to make but they are at breaking point. It is simply wrong that NHS workers in Northern Ireland face being left behind on pay. We are calling on the entire community to show their support for the fight for fair pay and safe staffing.”

Karen Murray, Director of RCM Northern Ireland, said: “You will see a lot of frustration on the picket lines today, but you’ll also see a lot of sorrow, genuine despair at where we find ourselves.

"What we are fighting for here is safety and fairness. The safety of our maternity services is reliant on midwives and MSWs, but if we don’t pay them fairly, they will leave.

"It’s as simple and as stark as that – and we’re already seeing it happen. Politicians can stem that tide – and they need to do it now.”

Staff at the North West Regional College in Derry, meanwhile, have been taking part in a full week of strike action in a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions.

Katharine Clarke, of the University and Colleges Union, said its members have been forced to take action after a decade of their members being subject to pay freeze, followed by pay restraint, which has seen lecturer pay awards limited to between 1 per cent and 2 per cent per year.

“Lecturers in Northern Ireland have the heaviest timetable of classroom delivery of any other UK jurisdiction. This prevents lecturers supplementing their pay from other sources.

"If the weekly teaching hours were reduced, lecturers could boost their wages working part time in industry, which also provides opportunity for skill development that can only enhance the students’ learning experience,” she stated.

Derry Trades Union Council expressed support for the striking workers and encouraged members of the public to support the pickets.

Niall McCarroll, Chairperson, said: “This week in a collective effort to cleanse our communities from this growing sense of hopelessness and demanding an end to rising inequalities - local trade union branches will be withdrawing their labour, taking militant strike action, demanding a change in fortunes for local people and our vital local public services.

"Trade unionists delivering a message that we all deserve and demand better.”

Mr. McCarroll said workers must ‘join together to end in-work poverty and rising economic inequality’.

"Derry Trades Union Council would urge local people to show their solidarity with these groups of local workers - as we use our combined power to demand better for us all,” he said.

39 photographs of striking education and health workers staging rally for pay in Derry