Day of disruption looms next week for Northern Ireland as unions merge strike actions together for one big joint walk-out

The GMB union has confirmed about 400 or so of its members who work in the NHS (people like porters and sterilisation technicians rather than medics) will be on strike.

Unison (with about 26,500 members in NI's NHS) has just confirmed it will stage 12-hour pickets at health trust sites for that day, running from 8am to 8pm.

Meanwhile multiple days of strike action by Unite, which were meant to begin today, have been cancelled in favour of consolidating them into a single protest on the 21st.

Kevin McAdam, regional officer for Unite, told the News Letter that his health workers need a much improved pay offer "if the service is to survive".

About 4,000 health staff belonging to Unite – including pharmacists, lab techs, psychologists, ambulance staff, and some nurses – are being asked to down tools next Tuesday.

This is in place of four strike days which have now been cancelled: today, tomorrow, next Thursday, and next Friday.

Though he is replacing four strike days with one, Mr McAdam said it is far from a “climb down”.

"We took the decision because the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have facilitated rallies across NI on the 21st in support of the teachers' strikes going on that day,” he said.

"That's the rationale for it. It's a sensible, active approach to boost the message that'll go out on the 21st.

"It's in no way a climb-down. And following the 21st we'll be considering dates for March."

He added that a £1,400 annual pay hike to all his members, which was announced last summer and which is due to start being paid out next month, "is not enough – there needs to be a considerable improvement".

As to what detractors will make of the resulting disruption on Tuesday, he said: "Disruption is a function of a strike. We try to minimise it of course in terms of safety of patients.

"But it's about disrupting the service and trying to get the message through to the government nationally and regionally that our health service workers need these increases if the service is to survive."

NHS staff belonging to the GMB union will also be on strike on Tuesday, February 21.

On the same day, four teaching unions will be staging a half-day strike, up until noon, which for many schools will spell closure during that morning.

The unions involved are: the Ulster Teachers' Union (a large part of whose membership work in controlled primaries), the National Education Union (a relatively-small union, largely dealing with voluntary grammars), Irish National Teachers' Organisation (mainly in Catholic schools), and National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (the biggest of the unions with members across the board).

Collectively they cover the vast majority of Northern Ireland's roughly 21,000 teachers.

They are jointly calling for a pay increase of 12% for 2022-23.

They were offered a deal last year which a union source says was roughly equivalent to a 1% pay hike.

Mark Langhammer, regional secretary of the National Education Union, said: “In the ‘lost decade’ since Chancellor Osborne’s pay freeze in 2010-11 teachers have lost some 24% in real-terms – more than almost every other profession or trade group.

"The Government claims there is no money, that budgets are tight, that we’re being unrealistic.

"That’s untrue. It’s a matter of political choices."

The recent upsurge in strike action has been fuelled by a sharp jump in the prices of common goods.

As of today, the Bank of England gives the inflation rate as being 10.1%.

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