‘We don’t want to be here, we want to be doing our jobs’: Striking workers take to icy streets in North

Main points

• Some 170,000 public-sector workers in the North are staging a 24-hour strike
• Strike was called after workers failed to get pay rises despite high inflation
• Action has left icy roads ungritted, halted transport services and shut schools
• Walkout adds pressure on DUP to end protest over North’s post-Brexit trade rules
• Northern Secretary refuses to intervene to release funding to make pay awards
• Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill: workers felt they have been forced to go on strike

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Civil disobedience “may well be necessary” in the public sector pay dispute in Northern Ireland, the trade unionist and campaigner Eamonn McCann has said.

Calling for preparations to begin immediately, he said “what we should be concentrating on now, if we believe that civil disobedience may well be necessary – I do believe that – then we should organise and start carrying the argument for civil disobedience and not simply expect people to, at a whistle, simply to come out and civilly to disobey.

“I come from a long tradition which involves civil disobedience, in my experience civil disobedience works when the people that you’re calling on to use the strategy, when they’re in favour of it.

Read the full story from our Northern Editor Freya McClements here.

Today’s rallies are now winding to a close, if not entirely wrapped up at this stage. It marks the end of a day of action but, many might fear, just the beginning of the unrest and uncertainty.

The “unprecedented” action brought up to 170,000 public sector workers out in what was the largest strike in the North in a generation.

Seventeen trade unions representing the interests and frustrations of nurses, midwives, bus and train drivers, teachers and ambulance staff voiced their anger at a pay dispute tangled up in protracted Northern Irish politics.

The 24-hour action has closed schools, public transport and rendered healthcare provision available only in emergencies.

PA reported on how the public sector workers brought their arguments for fair pay to the very doors of Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris in Belfast.

There was no response, nor even a sign Mr Heaton-Harris was inside the ultra modern security glass fronted office block in the city centre as police maintained a presence.

Undaunted by the lack of response at Erskine House on Thursday morning, Nipsa general secretary Carmel Gates roared over a loud speaker: “We’re here to embarrass – Chris Heaton-Harris”, to an approving cheer and repeating of the slogan by gathered strikers.

She went on to quip: “You couldn’t give him a red neck with a blow torch.”

Maria Fay, a medical receptionist on strike, explains from the picket that it’s a simple question of pay parity across the UK.

“They’re all getting the pay [increase]. We didn’t get the pay rise, we’re not getting the same pay but we’re doing the same work,” she spells out on RTE radio in simple terms.

“Everything has gone up. Your food shop has gone up, the rent has gone up, your gas, your oil, everything has gone up. And you’re wages aren’t reflecting that. So you’re not getting paid enough to match what your [outgoings] are.”

Not a good day for an outdoor strike, as demonstrated by this picture in Derry from our Northern Editor.

The Northern Ireland department of infrastructure updated its warning for snow and ice, noting that due to industrial action only very limited gritting of the road network will take place.

“As a result gritting which took place on Wednesday evening will no longer be effective, road conditions are likely to deteriorate and driving will become increasingly hazardous,” it said, highlighting just one of the many consequences of the state-of-affairs in Northern Ireland.

Whatever gritting will take place will be largely confined to main roads connecting towns and cities “at best”.

Gritting will continue on the M1 and M2 motorways, the A1 and the A4. Extreme caution is required by anyone travelling on any part of the road network.

Roads will also remain hazardous on Friday with gritting only likely to recommence on a limited basis from early morning.

Pedestrians should equally take great care when walking on footpaths, it said.

Road workers are to remain on strike until Thursday January, 25th prompting official advice that “disruption should be expected until warmer weather arrives”.

Today marks the first time some cancer nurses are striking, with chemotherapy services affected between 7.30am and 1pm, our correspondent Seanin Graham reports from Belfast.

“We’re not valued and there’s real sadness that we’re here again today,” said mental health nurse, Rachel Young.

Accompanied by her two young children, she held aloft a homemade placard with pictures of DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson and Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris with the words: “Shame, the NHS cares, these two don’t”.

Thousands of striking workers picketed outside Belfast City Hospital on Thursday morning ahead of a mass rally at City Hall.

Nurses, domestics, bus drivers and administration staff from five different trade unions lined the Lisburn road outside the hospital in the south of the city, where the regional cancer centre is based, in an unprecedented walkout over pay.

Owen Reidy from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has told the crowd at Belfast City Hall that if Stormont does come back it has to be different, reports PA.

“Today is historic, not only is it potentially the largest mobilisation of the trade union movement in this state’s history, but I think by your actions you have taken a decision to turn the page of history, to say we are not going back to the failed ways of the past where public services are under-resourced,” he said.

“You are not going back to the past where you are getting negligible or no pay increases. You are going to demand a different future.”

On the BBC Ulster Talkback programme, a woman called Stephanie, attending the picket, said the unions are now the only ones fighting for services for the people of Northern Ireland.

“[I] firmly put the blame primarily with the secretary of state because we are being used in this political game to bring the DUP back to a devolved government,” she said.

“We as unions would have a preference to a devolved government but the money is there and we are fundamentally being blackmailed or used in this blackmail game which we will not permit. The secretary of state has always had the power, and has the power today. He has let the most unnecessary public sector strike proceed today.”

She said today could only be the start, with escalation a real possibility.

Chris Heaton-Harris has resisted calls from unions and politicians to separate the public sector pay issue from efforts to re-establish power-sharing.

Our reporters are showing just how extensive the picket lines are.

X (Twitter) is replete with images and videos of striking workers as they take to the icy streets this morning, giving a very good sense of the scale of Thursday’s turnout. It puts images where words and numbers fail to illustrate the magnitude of today’s events.

Outside Thornhill College in Derry, teachers – and their families – had braved the snow to make it to a picket line, reports Northern Editor Freya McClements.

“I feel very angry at the whole situation,” says teacher and National Education Union (NEU) representative Jarlath Parlour. “I can’t believe that they have allowed the situation regarding education to deteriorate to such an extent as it has, and I believe something has to be done.

“We were left in a very difficult position. We had no choice other than to take strike action today, and I’m just happy the other unions have joined us, and hopefully that strength of feeling will resound across Northern Ireland.

“I’m hoping this will spur the DUP and spur Chris Heaton-Harris to address the situation. But, you know, wishful thinking perhaps,” he said.

“What really frustrates us is that we have no Assembly, we have no government in place,” adds teacher Maeve Connelly. “It’s like walking through treacle to try to get pay parity and to get a government and Executive in place to listen to us and to be fair, it’s just about fairness.

“We’re teaching children all the time about equality, respect and as role models, we have to do this for them.”

It was very much not the normal rush hour in Derry this morning, writes our Northern Editor, Freya McClements.

Heavy overnight snow brought home just how much everyone relies on the Road Service staff who grit the roads and keep them open in poor weather conditions.

This morning even the main roads – the Foyle Bridge, the Crescent Link road past Altnagelvin and on to the A6 to Belfast – were covered in snow and slush, with what traffic there was on the roads down to a crawl.

At Altnagelvin Hospital hundreds of health service workers from multiple unions – including Unison, Unite, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Midwifes (RCM) – stood on snowy picket lines.

What traffic there was beeped their horns as they passed, a demonstration of the level of public support for the striking workers.

“Midwives in Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland are the lowest paid compared to our colleagues in other UK countries. Why should I be paid less than someone in England doing the same job as myself,” said midwife and RCM representative Deirdre McCafferty.

“The cost of living is getting worse, and midwives and our colleagues are struggling. We don’t want to be here, we want to be doing our jobs, caring for women and their babies.

“But we do want to be paid fairly for what we do, and feel valued. Right now we feel so undervalued.

“Going on strike was our last resort. What else have we got left? We need our politicians to sort this out, for us and our colleagues.”

Yesterday, Irish Congress of Trade Unions assistant general secretary Gerry Murphy said Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris’s strategy had failed.

“Today in the house of Commons, Chris Heaton-Harris repeated the same discredited line he has held throughout this crisis, that fair pay for public servants is not his responsibility, but that of a restored NI Executive,” he said.

“The secretary of state’s strategy has clearly failed and it has failed the people of Northern Ireland.

“The trade union movement have won the popular argument, as witnessed the support we have seen from women’s groups, the voluntary sector, students’ unions, the 50 chief executives in the public sector, the PSNI Chief Constable and the head of the NICS and the public at large.”

He said the strikes and rallies on Thursday will be “demonstrations of industrial and public solidarity on a scale never seen before in this place”.

“Each industrial dispute has been mandated by the votes of trade union members,” he said.

“Every stage of this campaign for fair pay and better budgets from accountable local political institutions, has had the input of small and large trade unions.

“We have worked with every political party to ensure that our message is clearly understood and our economic analysis is appreciated by all sides.

“It only remains for Chris Heaton-Harris to do the decent thing and release the funds.”

Pickets and rallies are to be held in Belfast, Derry, Enniskillen and Omagh.

Padraig Mulholland, the deputy general secretary of Nipsa, which represents civil servants and public sector workers, said members had reached “breaking point” and that this was only the start of wider action.

“Our healthcare system is on life support, our education sector is failing, and the vital services our communities rely on are hanging by a thread,” he said. “The continued disregard for our members’ concerns will leave us with no choice but to escalate our actions.”

There will be a significant police presence at marches and picket lines, said the temporary assistant chief constable, Melanie Jones. “We are there to monitor crowds, minimise disruption and to keep everyone safe.” – Guardian

A strike by the majority of public sector workers in Northern Ireland has left icy roads ungritted, halted transport services and shut schools on Thursday, with people warned to only travel or seek medical help in an emergency.

The 24-hour strike, which trade unions said was the largest in a generation, was called after workers failed to receive pay increases despite multi-decade high inflation, following the collapse of the North’s powersharing government in early 2022.

The walkout by some 170,000 nurses, teachers, train drivers and other workers will add pressure on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to end its two-year protest over Britain’s attempts to settle post-Brexit trade rules for the North.

The public sector strike in Northern Ireland began amid a yellow weather warning for ice, prompting warnings that road journeys should be limited to essential travel only due to the conditions and limited gritting. Road service staff are among those set to strike for a week.

“The road network will be hazardous for travel due to widespread icy conditions and will not have been gritted apart from some limited gritting on the M1 and M2 motorways, the A1 and the A4,” The Department of Infrastructure said.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said, “If you do need to use the roads, please take extra care and allow additional time for your journey.”

The health service asked the public to “take all sensible steps” to reduce their chances of requiring care and assume any appointments due on Thursday were cancelled.

Northern Ireland’s chief nursing officer, Maria McIlgorm, said the disruption to services “could be on a scale not previously witnessed.”

The DUP says it will only return to government once it wins further concessions on the trade rules London agreed with the EU upon leaving the bloc. Many unionists feel any barrier to trade undermines their place in the United Kingdom. – Additional reporting Reuters