NIC-ICTU is hosting a strike rally in front of Belfast City Hall from 12:30-13:30 on Friday 22 September 2023.
This Belfast rally is for health workers, FE lecturers, journalists and civil servants who are undertaking strike action this week, with proceedings commencing at 12:30 and finishing 1 hour later.
Each union which took strike action this week will be represented:
NIPSA, NUJ, Unite, Unison, GMB, UCU, RCM, SoR, CSP.
In addition, there will be a photo-opportunity at Altnagelvin Hospital’s main entrance at 11am on Friday 22 September, featuring striking workers from the NHS, FE colleges, NI Civil Service and National World media.
Speaking as health workers commenced their strike action, ICTU Assistant General Secretary Gerry Murphy said
These strikes are the result of clear political choices made by the NI Secretary of State, and the de facto direct rule we have in the absence of a functioning NI Executive. The choices made by Chris Heaton-Harris have resulted in a Pay Border between Larne and Cairnryan and Liverpool and Holyhead. His refusal to honour the Barnett consequentials of pay increases across England, Wales and Scotland have given us the Irish Sea Pay Border.
Experienced staff are leaving and new entrants to the NHS and civil service are going elsewhere. The long-term impact of this year’s punishment budget will be significant and damaging for the social fabric of NI.
This is also simply unnecessary. Last week, NIC-ICTU issued a new paper on Public Finances in Northern Ireland, Smart Money, which clearly demonstrates the short-term mistakes and medium- and long-term solutions to our financial mess.
NI devolved departments were not irresponsible or too generous. Simple inflation is a major cause of any shortfall. So while Chris Heaton-Harris wants us to focus on ‘super-parity’ measures, such as water charges, these would bring in small amounts of revenue. Northern Ireland does not receive additional monies to fund these. They are funded from within our existing funding allocation. They are a political choice against regressive taxation which has widespread support.
We need to focus on four steps:
• We need to drop the debt that is currently crippling our finances;
• We need a mechanism to enable real transformation of public services;
• The Barnett Formula is redundant and should be replaced;
• Tax changes need to be made at Westminster
