UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday refused to renegotiate a pay rise for nurses and warned that the strikes, which began almost a week ago, could drag on for months due to the situation in the healthcare sector.
Sunak has reaffirmed after meeting with his Cabinet that «it is too late» to resume talks on increasing the wages of nurses in the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom.
The nurses are still on strike and health authorities fear that the situation will worsen. However, all indications are that the government will not budge as Sunak calls on the public to «prepare» for a long period of strikes.
Sunak insisted that the government is «acting in a fair and reasonable manner» and asserted that it «continues to do what it believes is in the long-term interests of the country,» which is focused on fighting inflation.
«The government is doing everything it can to be responsible and put in place contingency measures to support the population. In the end, it will continue to ask the unions to stop the strike because it simply affects people’s lives and has an impact on their health,» he said.
In this sense, he has asserted that it is «too late» to try to improve wages for the fiscal year 2022-2023. In addition, he has suggested that workers could get improvements going into the next fiscal year if they call off the strikes now. «We need to think about how we approach this next year. Of course, this is a conversation we will have with the unions,» he has asserted.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
