Threat of fresh strike action at hospital trust

Administrative workers at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust – which runs hospitals in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury – have staged nine days of strike action since last November.

After talks with management broke down in March, Unison took the decision to escalate the dispute by balloting all 2,500 of its members at the trust for strike action. It raised the prospect of medical staff – including nurses, operating theatre staff and pharmacy technicians – becoming involved in the dispute.

Unison chiefs revealed yesterday that just 20 per cent of the 2,500 members balloted had returned the forms. But 76 per cent of members that have sent back the forms had voted in favour of strike action.

The union’s regional organiser, Jim Bell, said: “We have a mandate for further industrial action.”

The trust’s director of human resources, Graham Briggs, said: “We are working with Unison with support from Acas to find a constructive way forward.”