Members of the Unite union held their first 24-hour strike on Thursday as the dispute between healthcare workers and Welsh Government escalates, with a further ten days of action announced. Oojal Kour reports from the picket line in Cwmbran.
By Oojal Kour. Images by Adwitiya Pal
Outside Cwmbran’s new medical transfer facility on Thursday, ambulance workers in hi-vis jackets were shouting slogans, holding placards, and waving bright red flags, marking the Unite union’s first day of intense strike action in demand for patient safety and better pay for NHS workers.
In the freezing cold, paramedics, medical technicians, and call handlers were amongst the ambulance workers in Wales who participated in the industrial action organised by Unite, which represents over 1000 members of the Welsh Ambulance Service.
Together they held 23 picket lines across the country after voting by a margin of 88% to strike against a below-inflation pay deal and poor working conditions – which has resulted in staff shortage, severe ambulance delays, and an NHS crisis. Their next strike will take place on Monday 23rd January.
Paul Stringer, an urgent care assistant for the Welsh Ambulance Service, was among those stood outside Beacon House, Cwmbran.
“We have ambulances queuing anywhere from eight to 48 hours,” Paul told voice.wales. The public needs to know this is happening in every hospital. They are all affected by this, and we’re now standing to say ‘This has to change’. If we don’t have reform now, the NHS will cease to exist.”
Richard Munn, lead officer for Unite in Wales, speaking at the picket line in Pontypridd told the BBC that workers could no longer carry on with the status quo: “For over a decade now, our members have seen real terms pay cuts at a time when they have seen the pressures in work, and the pressures on them in work, get greater and greater and greater. And they’ve finally said enough is enough.”
Ambulance response times were reported in late 2022 as being the worst to date, with delays having trebled in the past two years. In October, a record 28,143 hours were lost due to difficulty offloading patients across major emergency units in Wales.
According to Paul, the situation has led workers to the point where their mental health is being severely impacted. A 2021 survey revealed that ambulance staff had the poorest mental health among all emergency workers since the onset of the COVID pandemic. He said this results from burnout and frustration due to low salaries, staff shortages, and the closing down of health boards.
“Colleagues come back to the station in tears because of what’s happening in our health boards,” he said. “I have high blood pressure now because of the fact that it’s so stressful for us.” He describes many incidents where he has had to apologise to patients’ families because they could not offload them onto a bed due to bed shortages.
“It kills me to do that, and it’s awful for them. We take on the emotions of that family. We are the only support they have, so they unload into us but we have no way of unloading that. Because who do we unload it to?”
Last week, negotiations took place between health unions and Eluned Morgan, the Minister for Health in the Welsh Government. Ms Morgan proposed a one-off payment to NHS workers worth around £1,000. It was swiftly rejected.
“I’m asking for a pay rise that meets inflation, plus a little bit more so that I can live, my family can live,” Paul says in response to the offer, adding that he can’t see the strikes ending if Welsh Government doesn’t offer a better pay rise. “I float an entire household on my salary. It is getting increasingly difficult to do that. I have to make compromises on everything. £1000 is not going to change that.”
To put workers’ demands into context, their union Unite recently secured a 12% pay rise for fuel tanker drivers working on behalf of ASDA. The NHS pay award represents a 4% rise on average.
Just over a mile away from Beacon House, emergency medical dispatchers and 999 call operators were also taking part in strike action at Vantage Point House, a Welsh Ambulance Service call operating facility in Cwmbran.
Among them was Daniel Nitschmann-Roberts, a 999 call dispatcher. He told voice.wales that he had only been in the service for the last three months, but he said he was at the picket line fighting for members who had been there for longer. “I’m striking for people who have been taking those pay cuts in real terms,” he said. “I wanted to come out and speak on their behalf.”
While some workers feel that the Welsh Government’s hands are tied due to reliance on Westminster for proper funding, Paul criticised them for being equally complicit as they’ve had devolved power for well over two decades. “It has been made abundantly clear by Mark Drakeford and Eluned Morgan that we don’t have their support. It saddens me to think the founder of the NHS was a Welshman, and the Senedd will do nothing for this.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s term has been marked by a wave of industrial action from front-line public sector workers demanding better pay and working conditions. The Prime Minister has proposed harsh new anti-strike legislation that grants the Government to set minimum service levels for the public sector. This has raised serious concerns about forcing workers to attend work against their will or risk losing their jobs.
In response, the TUC has called for a day of protest against the bill on February 1st and in a major escalation, hundreds of thousands of workers in education, transport and the civil service will strike that day.
Ieuan, an emergency medical dispatcher at the Vantage Point picket line in Cwmbran, believes the anti-strike legislation is a way of silencing people. He said, “A strike is always a last-ditch effort to try and get change. By banning a strike, it’s just going to cause more problems than it’s going to solve. Why not just listen to what they are saying and actually make changes instead?”
Meanwhile, this has only escalated further strike action by ambulance workers nationwide. Ten new strike dates have been announced by Unite, spanning across February and March. GMB Union is also staging four more national strike days during the same time frame. Unison is currently re-balloting its members in the Welsh Ambulance Service, which closes on February 16th.
The NHS is preparing for the biggest day of industrial action it has ever seen on February 6th, which will see ambulance workers from GMB and Unite, along with nurses in England and Wales, staging a historic strike on the same day.
Ieaun told voice.wales about the challenges he faced in acknowledging that workers had no option but to strike in order to be heard. “I became quite unwell. It was due to the stress, not knowing what was best to do. Whether I stand on the picket line, or if I go in and try and help people. At the end of the day, unless we come together and strike, nothing’s going to change.”
Paul believes that workers have to come together and say to the Government, ‘This has to stop now’. He also hopes that people understand that they are striking for patient safety, and not to harm them, unlike what the Government is saying. “The strikes aren’t going to cause people to die, people are already dying. We are striking to stop this from happening.”
“Nobody joins the ambulance service for any other reasons than we care about people. This is our life, and all we want to do is go back to doing our job.”
Images from the strike, by Adwitiya Pal (scroll for images).
