Dave Reid, Socialist Party Wales
Junior doctors went on strike at hospitals across Wales for three days on 15-17 January.
At University Hospital Wales in Cardiff doctors chanted “Claps don’t pay the bills” on a very lively picket line. Hundreds of junior doctors attended the rally at the Senedd (Welsh parliament) on the second day of strike action.
Some junior doctors earn just £13.65 an hour in Wales. Junior doctors’ pay has reduced in real terms by a third since 2008-09. While the Labour-led Welsh government has committed to restoring pay in words, it has offered the lowest pay rise in of all the nations in the UK – just 5%. Even the Tories in England have imposed 6% on junior doctors there.
Labour
Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, claimed there was no money to pay more, yet in Scotland junior doctors have reluctantly accepted a 17.5% increase over two years. And the Labour Welsh government just accepts the levels of austerity demanded by the Tory Westminster government.
Despite the obvious evidence that there is problem recruiting and retaining doctors in Wales, the Welsh government has decided to pay the lowest wages in low-paid UK medicine.
“We have no option but to take action,” Megan, a junior doctor in Cardiff, explained. “No one wants to strike but we cannot just accept yet another cut in our pay. Year after year we have just accepted falling pay. This is all about fighting for the future of the Welsh NHS”.
Cardiff Trades Union Council and Socialist Party members brought solidarity from the rest of the trade union movement to the picket lines and the rally at the Senedd. Despite cancelled appointments, the support of ordinary people in Wales was shown by the horns of passing cars.
