Nurses to continue campaign for pay equity after 5% rise
LOCAL nurses have accepted this year’s 5% pay rise, but the campaign for pay equity continues.
At the end of last year Policy & Resources – which acts as the States’ employer – announced the pay increase for Agenda for Change nurses and midwives.
Royal College of Nursing convenor Kenny Lloyd said a clear majority of nurses voted for it.
‘The pay was imposed, it wasn’t actually offered, but we put it to the membership because it’s a requirement that we aren’t able to accept it without a vote.
‘Given the situation that [the] island is currently in and given that other States workers weren’t getting rises, I think nurses took that on board.
‘The caveat is always that talks continue because our case was never ever about the annual pay rise, it’s always about equity in pay, so that’s the big win that we want to get.’
Equal pay for work of equal value remains the goal of the RCN to acknowledge that their graduate profession is highly technical, physically tough, emotionally demanding and stressful.
However, that principle is currently not timetabled to come into implementation locally until 2027, and nurses want to see it sooner.
On the positive side, Mr Lloyd said there were now open channels of communication with Policy & Resources.
‘We’ve had meetings, and we’ve been talking more generally about terms and conditions, but we’ve also tabled the fact that we need to set a date soon to start talking about next year, so it’s not the case that it can get left too late and then we’re rushing to get something agreed before January.
‘And also with other work on terms and conditions it makes sense that over the timeline of any move towards pay equity other things will happen on that journey, so it makes sense that we’re looking at both.
‘The new committee has been very positive in wanting to meet with us and progress matters, so it’s been quite open and we welcome that.’
Nurses were one of only two groups of States employees who were in line for pay rises this year.
The other group, known as ‘public sector employees’, which includes manual workers such as crane operators, sewage cart drivers, caretakers and ground staff, were awarded a 2.4% increase.
All other public sector workers, such as teachers, police officers, JESCC staff, firefighters, prison officers and civil servants were given extra pay for 2020, but their wages this year were frozen.
