Medical union balloting 45,000 members from today over strike in March as ministers meet unions in effort to end disputes
A potential government offer of a one-off payment to teachers is unlikely to be enough to prevent upcoming strikes in England and Wales, Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said this morning. My colleague Peter Walker has the story here.
Good morning. There are various meetings taking place today between ministers and union leaders representing workers in health, education and the rail industry after Rishi Sunak called last week for both sides to get around the table. This is quite a shift from the pre-Christmas position when ministers insisted it was up to management negotiators to take the lead in talks with unions. At the end of last week it was not clear whether this was mainly a presentational ploy (Sunak wants the government to be seen as “reasonable’”), or whether significant concessions might be in the pipeline, but yesterday, as my colleague Pippa Crerar reports, Sunak hinted it was the latter in his start-of-year interview with Laura Kuenssberg.
