Nurses hope for better pay as thousands sign petition

Thursday 15 August 2019

"What do we want? Equal pay? When do we want it? Now."

Those were the chants heard outside Sir Charles Frossard House this morning, as members of the Royal College of Nursing presented a petition with around 4,500 signatures to the States, demanding a resolution to pay negotiations, and a more fair deal for all of the island's nurses.

Pictured: The RCN tabard. 

All of the island's RCN members were invited to stand outside the States main office building this morning to make their presence known, and to show how important equal pay is to them. 

At 08:30, Deputy Jane Stephens, Policy & Resources Committee Member, came down to receive the petition. Deputy Heidi Soulsby, President of Health & Social Care and Mark De Garis, one of HSC's most senior civil servants, were also there, although it is P&R that controls pay negotiations.

"We have been passing over a petition to the States of Guernsey because of the need to debate nurses' pay," Kenny Lloyd, an RCN convenor in Guernsey, explained.

"We need to get back around the table and start to work through the impasse we are at because of the inequality nurses are facing at the moment. It is blatant discrimination - we have given them solid evidence of a five to 15 thousand pound pay disparity, and something has to be done about it." 

Pictured: At one point, nurses with a megaphone turned up in an open topped Land Rover. 

Mr Lloyd said in recent times, negotiations seemed to have come to nothing. Every time they tried to set a deadline for progress to be made, the date was never met, and now, disappointment, exasperation and anger have reached boiling point.

"Something I would like your readers to consider is that a young nurse, 21, faces about 63 years of pay discrimination through their career. It lasts all of their working life and then in to their retirement. That is just a horrendous number when you think about it." 

But the petition is not all about pay inequality. Nursing is a competitive sector that is understaffed internationally, and it is also a sector essential for Guernsey to compete in: "we hope we can start to make progress in sorting all of this out," Mr Lloyd concluded. 

"Because in reality we are going nowhere. We want equal pay, and we want a strong and robust nursing system so we can have better staff recruitment and retention." 

Pictured top: Deputy Jane Stephens being handed the petition.