Health staff threaten strike action

Delegates at Unison's health workers conference in Brighton angrily attacked the staging of a 2.5% pay rise, which has reduced the value of the award to 1.9%.

The conference unanimously agreed that a ballot of the union's 450,000 NHS members will be held unless the pay offer is increased.

The Society of Radiographers, also meeting in Brighton, issued a similar warning, signalling a growing revolt over pay in the public sector.

Unison's conference rejected the pay offer and the union will now write to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor demanding urgent talks. Unison will work with other unions in the NHS to secure an improved award, raising the threat of a wider dispute which could involve more than one million health workers.

National officer Mike Jackson said the Government's decision to pay the recommended 2.5% award in two stages from this month and October was a "disgrace".

He went on: "We have a system of pay determination that we expect to be honoured. We don't expect the Government to rip up the arrangements."

Mr Jackson said unions were not happy with the original 2.5% offer but staging the award had made it much worse. He blamed Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown personally for deciding to water down the pay offer which has been made to nurses, ambulance staff, clerical employees and other NHS workers.

He said the Chancellor had claimed "falsely" that the Government was implementing the recommendation of the review body when in fact he was "distorting" it.

Talks will be held on Friday covering some of the lowest paid workers in the health service, including porters and cleaners at which a similar staging of a similar 2.5% offer is expected, but Mr Jackson made it clear unions would reject it. "We will say to the employers they have a clear choice - either they go back and improve the offer or we will have no alternative but to ask if you are prepared to support industrial action."