Ambulance and border strikes resume today – after new rail and nurse walkouts announced

Ambulance and Border Force staff are back on strike today as their bitter disputes over pay and working conditions continue.

GMB and Unite members will mount picket lines outside hospitals in the West Midlands.

At the same time, members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at Dover and several French ports, including Calais, will also walk out.

The Border Force strikes are set to last over the weekend until 20 February, in an escalation of a dispute over pay, pensions, and job security.

In order to cover for striking workers, the union claimed inexperienced staff were being brought in. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka called for ministers to “put money on the table to ensure fully-trained, experienced professionals are guarding our borders”.

“Ministers say their priority is security – it obviously isn’t,” he said.

‘Make a decent offer this year’

In the West Midlands, ambulance staff have called on the government to “talk, pay now, and make a decent offer”.

“West Midlands ambulance workers are on strike over this year’s pay,” said GMB senior organiser Stuart Richards.

“But ministers seem to think GMB members will be fobbed off by pretending this year’s cost of living crisis hasn’t happened. They are wrong.”

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More strikes on the way

Friday’s walkouts come after rail workers and nurses announced new strike dates for next month.

A raft of action was confirmed on Thursday, with tens of thousands of RMT members to strike again beginning on 16 March after the union received “no new offers” from employers involved in the national rail dispute.

Similarly, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said services will be at an “absolutely minimum” due to a 48-hour strike from 6am on 1 March.

And the union representing 112,000 frontline Royal Mail staff also revealed a fresh mandate for industrial action.