UK curbs nurses' strike after taking legal action against union

The British government succeeded on Thursday (27) in limiting the length of an upcoming strike by nurses, after the health department took legal action against a trade union.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) had called a 48-hour strike from the evening of April 30, which for the first time would involve staff from emergency departments, intensive care units, cancer care and other, previously exempt services.

However, Britain's health department said that industrial action on May 2, part of a long-running dispute, would be unlawful because a vote to strike is only valid for six months after a ballot of trade union members.

Lawyers representing health secretary Steve Barclay told London's High Court on Thursday that, as the RCN ballot closed on November 2 last year, a strike on May 2 would be "clearly unlawful action".

The RCN did not send lawyers to the hearing.

Judge Thomas Linden ruled on Thursday that the RCN's mandate for industrial action ended at midnight on May 1, meaning its planned strike the following day would be unlawful.

Barclay welcomed the ruling, saying the government had taken the RCN to court "with regret".

"I firmly support the right to take industrial action within the law, but the government could not stand by and let plainly unlawful strike action go ahead," he said in a statement.

Nurses have rejected a fiver per cent pay rise, despite the RCN recommending its members accept it, instead seeking an increase nearer to inflation which is running at more than 10 per cent.

RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen described the legal action as "the darkest day of this dispute so far", accusing the government of "taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal".

"Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today's interim order," she said in a statement. "It may even make them more determined to vote in next month’s re-ballot for a further six months of action."

Cullen said the union would no longer stage the walkout next Tuesday (2).

But the union leader said they would press ahead with planned industrial action starting on late Sunday (30) and continuing on Monday (1).

The stoppage, originally intended to last for 48 hours but now curtailed to around 28 hours, is the latest by the RCN as the dispute over pay and working conditions intensifies.

(Agencies)