Nearly two-thirds of nurses would be willing to take industrial action if they receive an unsatisfactory pay deal this year, said the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday.
This is the finding of an ICM poll of more than one thousand nurses.
With the Pay Review Body due to announce the 2007-08 recommended pay award for nurses any day now the RCN is urging the independent review body to give nurses a fair deal that reflects the real cost of living rather than the pay cut the government is proposing.
ICM researchers surveyed 1,006 RCN members earlier this month.
Sixty-two per cent said if they received an unsatisfactory pay award they would be willing to take some form of industrial action, such as refusing to work unpaid overtime, take on extra work or go on strike, provided patients did not suffer in the process.
The RCN said: ‘The government has recommended the Pay Review Body offer nurses a 1.5 per cent pay deal.
‘With the real rate of inflation currently running at 4.2 per cent, this amounts to a real terms pay cut of 2.7 per cent.
‘For the average nurse that means a £670.70 drop in their annual pay packet.’
The RCN is urging the government ‘not to use nurses, already the worst paid professionals in the public sector, as a tool to fight inflation’.
Nine out of ten nurses (90 per cent) say their cost of living has increased faster than any increase in pay over the past year, and 86 per cent say they would consider a 1.5 per cent pay award unfair, given the current rate of inflation.
RCN General Secretary Dr Peter Carter said: ‘Ministers should be under no illusions, though industrial action is never a course of action we would take lightly, the RCN is not in the business of accepting a pay cut for our members.
‘That so many nurses are considering industrial action is a sign of how desperate they have become.
‘The government can no longer afford to be deaf to nurses’ worries about the impact of deficit-driven cuts on patient care, nor blind to the consequences of imposing a below inflation pay award.
‘If ministers insist on cutting nurses’ pay in this way it will deal a damaging blow to staff morale.
‘It will push new recruits and experienced staff out of the door, it will stall the modernisation programme and ultimately it will hurt patients.
‘Wage discipline for the wider economic good is one thing but slashing nurses pay is not an option.
‘Nurses deserve pay justice, not a pay cut.’