CHRISTINA McAnea says strikes will restart if public sector health workers reject the Government’s recent offer.
Speaking exclusively to GB News, the leader of UNISON said although her union is recommending the deal should be accepted it was “up to members” to decide.
She told Gloria De Piero: “We are asking members in England to accept this. Now, it might not be what everyone wants, but we felt it was enough to actually go out and consult members on. We think there is enough here to go and say to the people who are members of UNISON, the cleaners, the nurses, the paramedics, the occupational therapists, and all the groups that we cover. But actually, it is their decision whether they accept it or not. So we’re out for consultation just now. We’ll have the result by the middle of April. If they accept it, that’s the deal that’s done. If they don’t accept it, then we’ve paused their strikes, so we would restart them.”
Commenting on the feelings of some that the offer isn’t enough she continued: “I can understand why people are unhappy, we had hoped for more but, you know, we are where we are. I also think there’s a lot of armchair warriors out there, people who like to tell those who actually did take strike action and who campaigned for this and who lost money when they took strike action.
“There’s a lot of people who like to sit and give them advice, saying just keep on taking the strike action and everything will be fine. Which is easy to do when you’re kind of a spectator on the side, but it’s different if you are actually the ones that came out on strike . Or you’re the ones who were campaigning even for strike action, and making all the noise within your hospital trust or health trust. I think it’s for them to decide, quite frankly, rather than, you know, some of the other people who want to give them advice.”
On whether she felt optimistic the deal would be accepted she added: “It’s the senior group within our health team who take the decision whether to make a recommendation or not. And they took a decision that they can recommend acceptance because they feel there is enough in this offer to actually go out and say to members, you’ve got a clear choice. Now this is the offer from the Government. We’re recommending you accept it because we don’t think we can get any more through negotiations, but they could also reject it.”
