“Government should ban strikes by NHS staff”

The government may have to ban strikes by NHS workers, an influential employers group has said.

It comes as Prime Minister David Cameron warned that services the public “genuinely value” will fall victim to the coalition’s spending cuts and that he could not place “a ring of steel around every service and every job”.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said the government faces a number of “high stake options”, such as banning strikes, as public sector unions prepare to take action against spending cuts.

Other policy options open to the government include legislation to require the parties involved in public service disputes to take part in compulsory arbitration prior to industrial action and changes to balloting requirements so that ballots should be counted separately for each employer.

The CIPD paper points to research which suggests just 16% of public sector employees say they trust their senior leaders.

Mike Emmott, CIPD employee relations adviser, said: “Trade unions have the power to disrupt only if employees trust them more than they trust management. The fundamental need is not to manage the trade unions, it is to manage the employment relationship and communicate the case for change.

“However it is also incumbent on the government to consider the policy options open to it for reducing the risk of disruptive and damaging industrial action by public service employees, such as banning strike action of those involved in the delivery of essential services. If the government was forced to go down this route it would be a sign of its failure to make the case for change to public sector employees.”

The report says 54% of public sector staff agreed that most people today are not willing to lose pay by going on strike.

Read the full report.

Tags: Cuts