Winter strikes: can a resolution be found?

Hopes of a breakthrough in Britain’s mass strike stand-off have been raised with ministers planning fresh talks with health unions and transport bosses sitting down with rail unions.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay is expected to hold a new phase of talks with union leaders ahead of planned strikes by nurses. Rail firms will also meet unions today in a “new push to end eight months of strikes”, said The Mirror.

What did the papers say?

The government’s new Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, unveiled this week by Business Secretary Grant Shapps, is likely to block the path to a resolution, according to several commentators.

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Rishi Sunak argued that the new draft laws are “entirely reasonable”, balancing the freedom to strike with the “right of ordinary working people to go about their lives, free from significant disruption”. He said they were also “in common with countries like France, Italy, Spain and others” and would ensure “minimum levels of safety” in emergency situations.

But the bill “picks an entirely avoidable fight with the trade unions” and has little to do with “the need to bring the current industrial disputes to either a fair or an early end”, wrote Martin Kettle in The Guardian.

Ultimately, it looks like “a hastily drawn response to the current wave of public sector strikes”, said Robert Peston for ITV News, “an attempt to prove that ministers aren’t powerless”.

There’s a “compelling argument that what’s driving these strikes is a sense among public service workers that they’re not valued highly enough”, he said. And “it is very unclear” that “limiting one of their basic civil and human rights, the right to take industrial action, will make them feel any more valued”.

Shapps and his government colleagues are “currently engaged in a difficult balancing act”, wrote James Heale for The Spectator, “negotiating with unions over pay one day, then seeking to curb their powers the next”, which is “emblematic of the ‘carrot and stick’ approach that ministers have adopted throughout this winter of industrial action”.

What next?

Although Barclay is set to meet the British Medical Association for talks, the discussions are not expected to cover pay, PoliticsHome reported.

Nevertheless, said the news site, it seems the government is “keen to avert further industrial action”. A Whitehall source said there was a recognition that union leaders “have to get something for this year before they will consider calling off the current wave of industrial action”, said the Daily Mail.

Health unions have said they are pulling out of the independent pay review process, said Nursing Notes. The 14 unions had been due to make a submission to the NHS Pay Review Body about the 2023-24 pay award but they have instead demanded direct pay talks with ministers.

There are “concerns that any payment to resolve the health dispute would set a precedent for other sectors facing industrial strife including education and transport”, said the Mail, “potentially landing the taxpayer with a bill running into billions of pounds”.

Could there be progress on the railways? The RMT and TSSA unions will hold talks with the rail bosses, after a government source told The Mirror that the Rail Delivery Group has been given a new negotiating mandate by the government.

However, Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, painted a gloomy picture for MPs on the Transport Select Committee yesterday, The Independent reported. “We’re further away than when we started,” he said.

He was asked by Iain Stewart, the Conservative chair of the cross-party committee, to rate progress in negotiations so far. “How close are we to having these disputes resolved, on a scale of one to 10 – whether with one, you remain on different planets, 10, I can go out and buy a hat for the wedding,” asked the MP. “Where are we?”

The union boss said: “I think you include zero in your one to 10, and we’re further away than when we started.” Frank Ward, interim general secretary of the white-collar union, the TSSA, said he “wouldn’t disagree with” Whelan’s assessment.

Nevertheless, union sources told The Mirror they were more hopeful firms would bring a new offer to the table to avoid further rail strikes.

Meanwhile, civil service unions have urged the government to move out of “listening mode” and put meaningful offers on the table to resolve pay disputes in the sector.

With ongoing strikes over pay by union members across several branches of the civil service, and the threat of industrial action in other areas, three trade unions have written to Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin after being invited to meet this week to avoid “prolonged industrial action”, noted Civil Service World.