Union celebrates historic win for workers and pledges to continue efforts to secure legal protections for safe staffing

Members of Unite the union working for the health and social care service in Northern Ireland have voted decisively, with an 81 percent majority, to accept a pay improvement offer made by their employer. The positive ballot outcome was repeated in all the other health side trade unions meaning that the industrial pay dispute in health and social care for the 2023-24 year has been formally ended.

The pay deal will mean that health and social care workers receive the same pay increase offered to NHS workers in England and Wales and restores pay parity. This amounts to 5 percent across all grades and a lump sum of £1,505. The offer was won through a campaign of mounting strike actions by health workers leading up to the one-day public sector strike in Northern Ireland on January 18^th which brought the region to a standstill.

Unite the union general secretary Sharon Graham welcomed the outcome, “Health and Social Care workers set themselves the goal of restoring pay parity with workers elsewhere in the NHS. This ballot symbolises that they have secured a comprehensive win on pay that delivers that objective. This successful outcome was secured through workers getting organising and launching a powerful wave of strike action. I am very proud of the role members of Unite have played in securing this historic win.”

Regional officer for health in Northern Ireland is Brenda Stevenson, she said, “This is a tremendous win for health workers in Northern Ireland. Shockingly this is now the second time in five years that healthcare workers in Northern Ireland have had to stand on picket lines in winter to defend NHS pay parity and indeed to force the politicians to return to government to deliver it. We cannot afford to see a repeat. Unite will now continue to work alongside the other health unions to secure legislation guaranteeing NHS pay parity and mandating safe staffing levels.”

ENDS…