Thousands of Nurses Start Strike in UK Despite Warnings From Government

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Thousands of nursing staff started a strike action in England on Wednesday to demand a pay increase that would match the rising cost of living, despite warnings from the British government that a significant raise risked entrenching inflation.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which represents some 40,000 nursing professionals in the United Kingdom, said its members had returned to the picket lines for two days of action "to help secure a safer future for the profession and patients."

RCN head Pat Cullen warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that he would have more strikes if he "continues to dig into his trenches." The union is seeking a 5% pay raise for nurses on top of inflation, which has been hovering at above 10%.

Nurses plan two more strikes next month. They will be joined by teachers, train drivers and civil servants who are planning a coordinated day of industrial action on February 1.

Robert Jenrick, the minister of state for immigration at the Home Office, argued that further strikes would be "an act of self-harm" and that double-digit pay increases in the public sector would only entrench inflation.

"The worst thing that we could do domestically would be to significantly increase public sector pay and then entrench inflation in the British economy and get into a kind of wage spiral that would be very detrimental to the economy," he told British media.