Nurses' strike: RCN union calls off part of 48-hour strike after High Court deems it unlawful - Sky News

A nursing union has called off strike action planned for 2 May after it was deemed unlawful by a High Court judge.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) had called for a 48-hour strike starting at 8pm on Sunday 30 April, continuing all day on Monday 1 May, and ending at 8pm on Tuesday 2 May in a row over pay and conditions.

But Health Secretary Steve Barclay claimed the final day of the walkout was unlawful as it was due to fall outside the union's six-month mandate for industrial action, granted in November.

Judge Thomas Linden agreed with the submission from the government - with no representatives from the RCN's side present in the courtroom.

Government wins court case to stop day of nurses' strike - politics latest

Following the legal defeat, the union's leader attacked the government for taking nurses to court rather than trying to resolve the dispute and said members would be reballoted for a new mandate.

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'What a day for nursing'

Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, said: "They [the government] have won their legal battle today. But what this has led to is they have lost nursing, and they've lost the public.

"They've taken the most trusted profession through the courts, by the least trusted people.

"And what a day for nursing. What a day for patients. And what an indictment on this government to do this to the very people that have held this NHS together, not just through the pandemic, but an NHS that has been run into the ground and in crisis, caused by this government."

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Mr Barclay said: "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.

"Both the NHS and my team tried to resolve this without resorting to legal action, but unfortunately, following a request from NHS Employers, we took this step with regret to protect nurses by ensuring they are not asked to take part in an unlawful strike.

This case was cut and dried, so why did the RCN persist with it?

It should not have come to this. There was no complex legal argument. The law is inflexible and so are calendars.

The RCN mandate began on 2 November and lasted for six months. A simple calculation would have shown that 2 May falls outside this period.

NHS Employers asked the government to take this legal action. They described the nurses' action as regrettable. So to did the Health Secretary Steve Barclay. He might be expected to say that given his role in this dispute.

But High Court Judges are independent. They are not taking sides but merely enforcing the rule of law. Mr Justice Linden said the union had showed "a high degree of unreasonableness", that the outcome was "inevitable" and "instead of grasping the nettle and conceding", it had forced the case to court.

Pat Cullen did not hear him say this. She was outside the High Court with her supporters. In fact the RCN had no legal representation to make their case inside Court 15 at all. Pat Cullen instead had submitted a witness statement.

The judge said it was probably "written for a different audience" and "although she could not bring herself to say it, she probably thought the secretary of state's legal interpretation of the planned strike dates was correct."

In other words nobody expected the RCN to win in court today. So why did they persist with the court case? The strike dates were announced very quickly after the union rejected the government's pay offer. There is a timeframe for giving notice of intended industrial action so that would have added to the pressure.

Once the dates were announced and after the possibility of illegality was raised maybe the RCN decided it was too late to back down. It certainly helped to play into the RCN's narrative of nurses standing up to a "bullying government".

The RCN has been ordered to pay court costs. Money it could have used to top up its strike funds as there seems no end in sight to this increasingly bitter fight.

"We welcome the decision of the High Court that the Royal College of Nursing's planned strike on 2 May is illegal.

"The government wants to continue working constructively with the Royal College of Nursing, as was the case when we agreed the pay offer that was endorsed by their leadership. We now call on them to do the right thing by patients and agree derogations for their strike action on 30 April and 1 May."

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's official spokesman said it was "regrettable" that court action was needed.

He said: "Late yesterday, Steve Barclay wrote to the RCN, to Pat Cullen again, and asked them to call off their final day of the strike given we were confident that it was not legal, they refused again."

Image: Health Secretary Steve Barclay

RCN members rejected a deal earlier this month which would have seen them given a one-off payment of 2% of their salary, plus a COVID recovery bonus of 4% for the current financial year and 5% for the year after.

This was despite a recommendation from the union's leaders that the deal be accepted.

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2023-04-27 15:33:45Z
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