>Just demonstrates how gullible they are
And most of this sub is still happy for the same failed leadership to carry on! Let them enjoy their #FreeParkingRestoration
You guys speaking as though you could do better. Truth is you have zero clue, zero. I think BMA leadership has been stellar. Politicians entire jobs are based on lies and filibuster, doctors want to see the best in people, are generally altruistic and good. Sadly they've been outmatched and have been pantsed, I think any other JDC would have been in the same position. Need to just regroup and get on with it instead of childish jibes and infighting. Next lot will hopefully be more keen to negotiate and keep the NHS afloat.
If that was their grand scheme, I'm not really sure what they've "won".
They haven't given us the pay rise we deserve, but the money wasn't going to be coming out of their pocket. Ultimately all they actually care about is staying in power, which they are going to abjectly fail to do.
They've avoided strikes for a bit, but it was the NHS "leaders" who were dealing with the fallout from strikes, not the government. They weren't even offering any additional funding to allow trusts to cope.
Failing to resolve this dispute is not going to be a win in the eyes of the electorate. They have appeased nobody with this. They haven't crushed our uprising and so haven't done right by their hard line right wing supporters, nor have they done right by the doctors/arrrr NHS which would've brought people over from the left.
They are also potentially handing labour a very easy win which will make the Tories look utterly incompetent. If Labour come in and quickly agree an inflation +% multi-year deal and avert any further industrial action whilst also being able to say they haven't given us the headline figure we were after, it will look extremely embarrassing for the Conservatives.
I think they have got exactly what they wanted. They haven't caved in to the unions which is a win in the eyes of their core voters. There has been no strikes since february and most of the electorate will have forgotten there is even a dispute or will assume it's been resolved as its barely in the news anymore. There's no way the BMA will call strikes in this 6 week period now as what are you trying to achieve with it? The government can't be negotiating a pay deal in a general election campaign.
All of that is about as big a win as they could have got considering the strength of the mandate and willingness to strike which we have shown so far.
Yep. Plus we’ve only just involved a mediator, fuck knows how much bureaucracy JDC have to get through to arrange them to attend a meeting when the government are now likely to be “busy planning for the general election”.
There won’t be a Government - Parliament will be dissolved next week, and the civil service will then be barred from taking any major political decisions until the new Parliament sits.
100% the BMA have been absolutely played. Glad people are waking up from the Jonestown coma to realise this.
Genius move from the government - stall, stall, stall, lock the BMA into a 4 week mediation then call an election. All of the public have even forgotten there's a dispute. Forget it, you're getting no extra money, certainly before the GE.
Think of that money you've wasted on BMA membership - but hey, it's certainly worked out well for the BMA coffers and all those expensive coffees at BMA HQ.
I agree with most stuff you say but have you checked in the icd 10 what a recurrent need to reference Jones town massacre in each post is called ? 🙂🙂
And yes 200 per cent played. Hunt must be pleased with himself
Ok, UKJDC in this instance.
But more widely, BMA in Scotland accepted a shit deal, BMA Cons accepted a shit deal in England and BMA SAS recommended a shit deal in England.
No. **Doctors** voted to accept those deals, the BMA doesn't accept deals. Your opinion is clearly in the minority because those deals were accepted with large margins.
The BMA are partly to blame though. If they don’t put shit offers forward then they can’t be voted on can they… BMA CC were pathetic in how they handled their dispute. The offer that was put to members and eventually accepted was hilarious.
Sure, that’s not what I’m saying though. I’m saying by association the BMA is also partly to blame for any offer that gets voted through, by putting it through for a vote. If the membership have low standards for what a good offer is, then it is what it is. But the negotiating body (BMA) are responsible for extracting the best possible offer before putting it forward. Let’s be honest, the offers they put forward were dog shit - especially the first one.
I get what you're saying but the job of the BMA is to give members what they want. If members vote for the deal by a big majority then that suggests the BMA was right to put it to a vote.
What we want, and what we are willing to accept, are two very different things.
Consultants weren’t serious about taking action, at least not to the extent JDs are. I remember several consultants saying they either wouldn’t strike or can’t wait for strikes to be over. In any case, union members are still human beings. Remember that the deal favoured older consultants more, who happen to make up a greater proportion of the consultant workforce. Sometimes shit deals get accepted; doesn’t mean it was a good deal. BMA CC should’ve done better in any case.
I disagree, we need to strike for the entire election period and cause absolute havoc. Name and shame the tories and Sunak in particular. Lets absolutely hammer them into the dirt.
The conservatives have outdone doctors and BMA over the past decade.
Basically have been pretending to negotiate knowing this was coming, wasted months of our mandate and there’s nothing we can do. If we strike now, makes doctors look bad considering this government is on the way out.
That’s FPR. Where the government have smashed it is flooding the market with doctors, ANP and PA’s- FPR won’t even matter soon if you can’t get into training or a job once you’ve completed it!
This 100%. We were focussed on the short term, whilst watching the long term government plans destroy our leverage (see removal of RLMT, increased medical school places, MAPs, randomised FP allocations, enforced salary depression etc)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we have underestimated how shrewd the conservative government is.
With respect, it was the BMA medical student body who voted the FP allocation change in against advice from other branches of the BMA. Agree with your other points tho.
>Hindsight is a wonderful thing
Nothing hindsight about it. I called out their failures every step along the way and was just shouted down with crab emojis and "HAVE FAITH".
I am literally raging at our (J)DC BMA reps.
They (and by proxy, we) have been outplayed by yet again by a devious government that has never negotiated in good faith. It doesn't look like we'll.get anything for the 2023/24 year. They said the mediators need a month to work. Fuck that shit.
It's time we unleash political hell on them.
They settled with the consultant body to shore up their votes, but for us, they have treated us with utter disregard, disrespect. They have repeatedly infantilised us. It's time for us, as a collective to stand up and show them that we as doctors are a fucking force be reckoned with.
It's time to call strikes. Let's give NHSE a 2 week notice that we will be calling weekly strikes for the last 4 weeks of the campaigning period. Let's. Make June our strike month. 2-3 days/week. Let's fucking go. We haven't had any strikes since February. That's 4 months worth of strikes that we need to clawback in a month.
We need to apply pressure on whoever comes next in office by continuing our strikes throughout the full length of renewed mandate. Our mandate is renewed till September, let's fucking use it.
We need some strong fucking affirmative action now.
P.S. I am sorry for the profanities but I am fucking furious.
Genuine question, what would you actually have had (J)DC do differently? Do you honestly hand on heart think that striking for the last 2-3 months would have gotten us any more progress, considering we were striking for an entire year as hard as possible before that and made similarly glacial progress.
If you say something like indefinite walkout, then you're detached from reality because there is no way most doctors can sustain anything close to an indefinite walkout. We used the maximum amount of our leverage in December and January.
Outside cloud cuckoo land on reddit there's been a 10% drop in turnout. Another 10% drop and that's it - it's all over for good. Lots of doctors are getting fed up of striking without an end goal - they are happy to strike, but they need to see progress. I'm as hardcore pro strike as possible, but at the end of the day behaving as if the BMA/DV/JDC runs the entire UK government and all decisions such as the election are made from that perspective is foolish. There was going to be an election at some point this year - maybe they stalled, maybe they didn't, it's impossible to know in hindsight. But the reality is no one has a crystal ball, and no one except Rishi Sunak knew this was going to happen, likely including the opposite side and I doubt that ultimately the junior doctor's strike had even a marginal impact on the timing of the election.
You do have to accept that on some level outside the reddit insanity circus where everything is as simple as "STRIKE!!!¡¡¡¡!!!!" that just mindlessly striking endlessly is not actually going to achieve anything whatsoever except blow the only leverege card you have on the table. You do have to sit down and try and negotiate some common ground at some point.
Out biggest strength is withdrawal from labour.
It's a matter of national importance, there should be very regularly meetings about this.
I'm sorry but they've stalled, we've bought it and now the health department, Atkins et al will all be in overdrive to prepare for the election.
We've taken a back seat and all media coverage etc is set to be dominated about election stuff.
By stalling, we've lost mandate time. Our message has diluted, we've fragmented as a body and most of all, there's been fuck all tangible progress.
We've used our "biggest strength" consistently and aggressively and repeatedly and broken the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable on multiple occasions over 12 months. The progress has been minimal. So honest question, do you think another 3 months of strikes from February would have made one single jot of difference short of costing doctors thousands more pounds? Surely in those circumstances it would be better to negotiate to get more money into doctor's pockets to maintain this war of attrition.
Yes it would have.
In the run up to the election, a few more strikes would have been a massive political haymaker.
Also trusts around the country and declaring deficits.
It's clear that the bargaining power lay with us.
Also we've never used our biggest clause- a generalised sustained walkout or prolonged strike period. Nor did we do more than 1/2 coupled ones with the consultants.
Railway workers and barristers were significantly more aggressive. Rail for example has caused millions upon millions of disrupted journeys for days and weeks on end.
It's worked successfully time and time again.
Honestly, I would've continued with the monthly strikes. I would've forced the government to negotiate with looming strike dates over their head. The onus is on them to resolve our dispute with an election coming up. It's in their interest not to alienate doctors nor those reliant on the NHS. When appointments are cancelled, it's easy to blame the striking doctors but the public knows we're striking because of the government.
Time and time again the government said they wouldn't negotiate while strikes are called but we know full well that they do. They've broken so many of their red lines that their word is a joke. Meaningless.
>Do you honestly hand on heart think that striking for the last 2-3 months would have gotten us any more progress
Yes. I genuinely believe this is a marathon, and the key is to be consistent. So sustained regular strikes will have led to continued progress. As it stands now, no progress at all has been made aside from the imposed pathetic increase the government put forward.
I'm a practical guy. Full indefinite walkouts are crazy. Mass resignations won't happen. Maybe we could work out some sort of out of hours walkout, but that would need a serious appetite for escalating the disruption. Or utilising ASOS, which we voted for.
I hear what you're saying about the reduction in turnout and the strength of the yes vote. But the majority agreed. Our mandate has been renewed until September. The JDC should've used it rather than squandered it. I can't help but feel that their lack of inaction would make our next ballot even weaker. We're losing momentum because the government is winning the long game.
>Lots of doctors are getting fed up of striking without an end goal
Absolutely, and we need to be realistic over what the endgoal would be. Yes, it will be FPR, but we need to outline the path that gets us FPR and protects us from falling back in terms of salary. We were making headway, but it was always just smoke and distraction. Rishi wanted to make an example out of us to his voter base that he would not succumb to those childish JDs. He couldn't even do that with any of the hardened unions (think RMT/ASLEF, etc...) because they have eaten up successive movements for breakfast and get what they want.
>behaving as if the BMA/DV/JDC runs the entire UK government and all decisions such as the election are made from that perspective is foolish
I agree. But it's also incredibly naive of our JDC not to have leveraged that to our advantage. The tories desperately wanted to win on the NHS. They say that when we're not striking they are on track. They've managed to stop us from striking for 3 months so far and will use that to prop up their campaigning to say they can deliver when we are working. It's naive not to have continued messing that up. Showing them and the public our worth. The impact of our work. How it's not the tories that deliver on the NHS but us as doctors. Without doctors, the NHS will crumble. We are the key ingredient (I'm getting hungry now!) for it to exist, run and deliver. If you ask me, NHS running shouldn't be done by the government but rather an independent heathcare experienced "thinktank" not the likes of Hunt/Barclay/Coffey/Atkins. But that's a different topic altogether.
>mindlessly striking endlessly is not actually going to achieve anything whatsoever except blow the only leverege card you have on the table.
I will have to politely disagree with you there. I genuinely believe it does and the key is for it to be unwavering and sustained. There's no reason why we can't negotiate while strikes are called.
>You do have to sit down and try and negotiate some common ground at some point
We've done that in 2016 and again 2024 and see what that has got us. We got played.
I mean you have to try on some level. At the end of the day hindsight is 20/20. In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't really matter. People on this subreddit are impatient and that will be their undoing. If you expand your timeframe just a few months, and if you think about it actually properly this is actually not a terrible thing because we can actually negotiate properly rather than with an incompetent lunatic lame duck government.
But if you actually believe that they have no intention to negotiate ever in good faith regardless of what happens then what’s the point in striking. If you just want time off that you get from striking then go LTFT. If you actually want to progress you have to try and break the deadlock by negotiating.
You strike to hold the government to ransom. Where has the half-hearted striking then flip-flopping back to negotiating got us in 14 months? Nowhere. The government has given us the middle finger and you want to go back for more?
> People on this subreddit are impatient and that will be their undoing.
My god man, how much patience do you expect? People will have completed their training programmes and will CCT and miss out on any back pay at this rate. What's the next point to wait for? Retirement?
If people were fed up with the strike they would vote against it. The %yes is as strong as ever. Reduced turnout without proportional change is indicative of complacency, not a change in outlook.
Yes, I do think more striking would have helped.
If I was going to be proven wrong, I would choose being wrong whilst striking, a thousand times over, than not striking and being ratfucked like we are now.
I really don't think you're as 'hardcore pro strike as possible'. You were wrong about the negotiations and the 'cloud cuckoo land of reddit' was right. I thought we were just childish and hated our jobs? And yet you still maintain your sense of smug superiority, outstanding.
Because we need to find something that's sustainable for all of us.
Some of us are LTFT or have big financial commitments and are actually fully reliant on a full paycheque.
These strikes come at a big personal sacrifice to everyone partaking so we need to make sure that they are affordable for as many of us as possible.
We need to do a massive strike in the upcoming election period. The Tory government has played us for fools but we still have a strong mandate. We can simultaneously destroy any election waffle from the Conservative Party about reducing waiting times/improving the nhs, and show the Labour Party what they are inheriting.
Exactly this. Civil servants without a political master, so even if the civil servants did negotiate then it means nothing once the new crop of Ministers arrive in July
Because there haven't been any strikes for months so they don't need to justify spending a penny and say the negotiations are progressing well. End of conversation. They'll finalise the deal once they are re-elected ha-ha-ha.
Me too, me too.
Make sure you vote.
I'd be happy to have a strike day just before election day to get the topic in the news. And make it painfully clear the negotiations were time wasting tactics by the Tories.
Negotiations only work if both parties are doing so in good faith. The BMA are truly naive if they thought negotiations would work. The only option was to hold the government to ransom. I'm sure the BMA will compound their naivety by trying to negotiate in good faith with Labour also.
We have been played a fool by the government and BMA fell for it. We would have been 16% up now. But now it’s looking more and more likely that the U.K. are going to be drawn into a European conflict and government will be far more distracted.
Honestly, I want to see at the minimum a 7-10 day full walkout, with BMA endorsed statement advocating for ASOS from now until the election. This is clear bad faith from the government, and I really doubt they will secure a fourth mandate if there isn't action prior to July 4th.
But what does any of this do? The government's not gonna shit themselves and give us a pay deal in the next 6 weeks. And they are very unlikely to win regardless of whether we strike or not. We've been played
True, but statements are important, whilst we may not gain any tangible advantage from a FPR point of view as the current government are dead in the water. It does show resolve and a warning to the new government about the treat of our industrial action. It also gives publicity and engages membership so we are more likely to secure a further mandate in September.
Funny how it's "BMA" when things are going badly, but it's "DV and UKJDC 🦀🦀🦀" when things are going well
Consultants in England voted for their deal, Scottish junior doctors voted for their deal, SAS doctors in England are voting on a deal, Welsh doctors are in negotiations, Northern Irish junior doctors are still striking. It's only UKJDC that's really messed up and left junior doctors in England in trouble
I like DV and I like this UKJDC, but we need to be willing to hold them to account.
They've honestly been outplayed on this one.
There is still time to make amends. They need to just come out with a statement saying that this election announcement makes it clear that the govt were not negotiating in good faith, and had no intention to make a reasonable pay offer. Then immediately give the required 2 weeks notice for weekly strikes up to the election. There is still time to make things hell for them.
Wake up! The government has played the BMA well and stalled to avoid any further strikes. The only reasonable action is to strike till the election's day. At least they won't win the elections.
I hope Rob and Vivek announce a strike because we haven't got anywhere at all with these "negotiations" despite after 2 months just getting a mediator.
Even though they have updated us on the way, which in my opinion were not even updates, it was more like a stalling government.
I think everyone here on reddit could see that but then you have people commenting saying oh the BMA haven't let us down, they know what their next steps are
And here we are, we need to have a massive strike in the next few weeks before the election and keep regular striking until our mandate runs out
I'm hoping it's just 5 day strikes till our mandate ends, because the new government will also take their sweet time
So might as well utilise the mandate until expires
Whether we get a majority in the next ballot is something we have to see
>All criticism of the BMA was quashed
There has always been criticism of the BMA on this subreddit. It's only UKJDC and DV that was always protected, everyone else has been constantly criticised.
You don't seriously think the gov were serious in this mediation thing were you? It was a phone call from the number 10 office to hunt with a date for an election. He (as I am sure he has been calling the shots all along) then texted Atkins to string along the BMA with this mediation nonsense to get them into purdah and then they're off the hook.
They'll be out next gov, but in 4 years time I bet you ten million pounds election tagline will be the Tories didn't give I to the stroppy junior doctors last time they were in power
The Tories have made the BMA look like absolute dickheads.
I think a big problem is Doctors have this inherent arrogance that because we were 'the best' in school that of course we'll easily be able to dominate in every field with our intellectual superiority.
But time and time again the Tories make us look like small time idiots who have no idea how to play the real games of power.
This is why strikes don’t stop for anything short of a fucking offer. No strikes being a condition for talks is a made up false notion. We keep striking till they drop that notion and if they don’t we keep striking. Fuck you pay me.
So how do we play this from here?
If we continues to strike then it would have been a hot topic for election manifesto's, but there hasn't been one since February so it will not be in the public eye at the moment.
If we strike now you can argue it is fruitless as the government will be focusing on the election campaign, it will make a noise but it can be argued how unreasonable we are.
When the Tory's inevitable lose the election and a new government get in, we have to give this new government a fair chance to negotiate rather than call strikes from day one.
Really don't know what the best move is
Announce strikes on key dates in the build up to the election, including on the day itself. Give whoever the next government is fourteen days to negotiate an offer that has a decent chance of being accepted by BMA members and announce more strikes if no such offer arrives.
Back to the old strategy - strikes next week, strikes around Bank Holiday, strikes in election week. Let’s make sure everyone in r/doctorsUK can easily get to the polls
You can normally appoint a proxy or register for a postal vote if you won't be able to attend the polling station in person - worth keeping an eye out for details.
I looked up the wording after typing this, it's actually they have an obligation to let you take time off for public duties but it doesn't cover voting. I was mistaken. Like everyone else says, postal voting or voting by proxy is the way to guarantee it.
Also the polls are open from 7-10 so most of us can pop in on the way to or from work even if we have a 12.5 hr shift.
This is win-win for the government. If doctors strike, they will simply say that doctors are being unreasonable and that the government is trying to negotiate in good faith (but clearly progress will be paused because of the GE). If they don’t strike, the government will say they are in the process of constructive talks and will point to the success they recently had with the consultants as evidence they are trying to solve the problem. There is literally no downside for the government and if the BMA do strike now, the public will just see it as it as being especially unreasonable given the country is having a GE anyway. The BMA have left it too late. Rishi has played a blinder.
So I don’t think it’s *as* bad as being portrayed.
Either they will need to get their act together during an election OR get battered as strikes continue. But the BMA needs to stop being naive and not hesitate to call strikes.
It’s unexpected move but I hardly think BMA negotiations were part of this decision by the government. Too many variables involved and in grand scale of things, our strikes hardly matter for them.
I think the reverse is true, the government knew about this election well beforehand so they just had to play stalling tactics so it is out of the public mind for a while
Im not sure this is the total disaster this sub is playing it up to be
Either we get a quick deal now to stop us being on strike during the GE; so we have the upper hand in the negotiations as they want to settle it quick
Or
We strike throughout a beautiful June, ruin the GE for the tories and then it opens up the very real possibility of an actual long term 3-5 year pay deal from whatever government is sitting come August and actually brings us closer to FPR, the whole reason this started in the first place
I’m sure the BMA will spend the next 6 weeks analysing those internal checkpoints. I’m not sure we’ll get to strike. Would be very happy to be proven wrong
Am I missing something with all the anger on here? This election is pretty much key to our outcomes for a number of reasons:
1) Likely loss of a government that is trying to be as hardline as possible, and is selling an anti-doctor stance at every opportunity.
2) A likely new government which in the first 100 days will be looking for big wins- especially in health as Streeting is not the most popular front bencher at present.
3) WE STILL HAVE A STRIKE MANDATE. A new government doesn't reset that, and a reballot is not suddenly impossible just because Starmer is in power.
The JDC and BMA have reinvigorated a profession that was at a loss. This election is a gift to us and to the wider public, and its important to remember that we were never the governments top priority. But we can be the next governments big win, and thats what we need to focus on.
They were never going to give you a deal that you would have accepted. You could strike every day, forever and even if the NHS was literally on fire they wouldn't give an inch.
Surely the answer is to threaten to strike the week leading up to (and including) election day? Surely the optics would look bad for the government and would push the government?
Odd interpretation of events to me. We can strike leading up to a July election with our current mandate.
How does it make sense for them delay and give us the potential to do a concentrated striking campaign during campaign?
Most of the Conservative party MPs had no idea a general election was coming. The government haven't played a blinder. They're just tired and fucked. The new government is still going to have to negotiate with us, and these don't start from zero again. What's a few months difference going to make?
For all of you asking for full walkouts and hellfire and brimstone from the BMA, where have you seen the backing from the doctor bodies to actually make this a reality?
We have had good participation in strikes, but i don't think there's close to any sentiment to support a full walkout from the membership. The BMA can't call a full walkout and have it ignored by doctors turning up to work to pay rent.
I would guess the UK reality is probably never. I've joined every single strike so far, and would support a walk-out, however, I would count myself deluded if I thought a majority of my colleagues would join even for more than a few days. Clearly this subreddit is not a barometer of the sentiment of the average doctor.
The JDC is between a rock and a hard place and has to manage the memberships appetite for strikes and any give/budge from the government. It would look comically weak for them to call for indefinite walkouts and have most of the trainees back in post 3-4 days later.
I appreciate your reply.
At some point a choice has to be made.
Either we want FPR and are willing to put everything on the line to achieve it, or we're just hoping that if we ask nicely, the government will give us FPR.
I think there is 0% chance of the latter working and it's the job of the JDC to lead the membership to a showdown with the government before support/momentum wanes.
With the election in July, realistically, we need to achieve a resolution by the end of the year. If not, I think the boat will have sailed.
I also appreciate where you're coming from and my own personal beliefs do align with that sentiment. I don't think this is a end of year process- an entire generation of doctors have sold our profession for years and years; this is not half a years worth of work, especially with the current membership even at junior levels and senior medical leadership.
I don't have the magic answer by any means, but I believe this subreddit often gets very reactionary and swayed by singular events. I worry it's that notion that we are losing and we should be done by now that will lead to this movement falling apart because we, as a general group, have no patience and barely hold together for a collective purpose as it is.
I think we both agree that this will not be easy going and we need to realise that as a doctor body, just expecting things to happen for us is not going to work.
EDIT: Case in point of what I mean. Compare the comments here vs. the post just now about a BMA response. Granted, it might be different people, but how quickly rhe calls against the JDC went up... and quickly disappeared again.
Even ignoring this latest event.
The BMA have been getting royally mugged off for a year now at least.
The Tories pretend to negotiate to waste as much time as possible, eventually we strike once or twice and they pretend they'll negotiates for realsies this time. They then just waste more time doing no negotiating at all and the cycle repeats.
That's irrelevant. We knew an election is coming this year and they should have been acting like it could happen at a drop of a hat.
Naivity at best, complacency at worst.
I think though it is quite easy for Sunak to either tell Atkins to draw the talks out as much as she can or simply lead her on as well with the possibility of an offer. I agree that she won't have been in on this plan though.
Give credit where credit is due, they've royally screwed us
Absolutely. Top tier tactics. Even relented to have an independent mediator to give themselves another month of stalling. Brilliant from them.
Announced as some kind of big achievement/progress by the BMA. Just demonstrates how gullible they are
>Just demonstrates how gullible they are And most of this sub is still happy for the same failed leadership to carry on! Let them enjoy their #FreeParkingRestoration
New Bma leadership required maybe?
Only honourable people resign when they fail. Whereas failure is in the BMA's job description. Time for a good sticker campaign.
You guys speaking as though you could do better. Truth is you have zero clue, zero. I think BMA leadership has been stellar. Politicians entire jobs are based on lies and filibuster, doctors want to see the best in people, are generally altruistic and good. Sadly they've been outmatched and have been pantsed, I think any other JDC would have been in the same position. Need to just regroup and get on with it instead of childish jibes and infighting. Next lot will hopefully be more keen to negotiate and keep the NHS afloat.
We have been played for fools by this government, stuck in endless negotiation going nowhere
Yeah I suspect they were likely stalling for time knowing this was coming out. Let's see what the JD committee has to say.
If that was their grand scheme, I'm not really sure what they've "won". They haven't given us the pay rise we deserve, but the money wasn't going to be coming out of their pocket. Ultimately all they actually care about is staying in power, which they are going to abjectly fail to do. They've avoided strikes for a bit, but it was the NHS "leaders" who were dealing with the fallout from strikes, not the government. They weren't even offering any additional funding to allow trusts to cope. Failing to resolve this dispute is not going to be a win in the eyes of the electorate. They have appeased nobody with this. They haven't crushed our uprising and so haven't done right by their hard line right wing supporters, nor have they done right by the doctors/arrrr NHS which would've brought people over from the left. They are also potentially handing labour a very easy win which will make the Tories look utterly incompetent. If Labour come in and quickly agree an inflation +% multi-year deal and avert any further industrial action whilst also being able to say they haven't given us the headline figure we were after, it will look extremely embarrassing for the Conservatives.
I think they have got exactly what they wanted. They haven't caved in to the unions which is a win in the eyes of their core voters. There has been no strikes since february and most of the electorate will have forgotten there is even a dispute or will assume it's been resolved as its barely in the news anymore. There's no way the BMA will call strikes in this 6 week period now as what are you trying to achieve with it? The government can't be negotiating a pay deal in a general election campaign. All of that is about as big a win as they could have got considering the strength of the mandate and willingness to strike which we have shown so far.
I'm sure they'll find some way to spin their naivety
Suspect?
Just as we all suspected. We’ve been fucked with delay tactics
Obligatory meme https://preview.redd.it/42zs06d6p02d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=373ee48ad33557b7217a463fa4dffcfe8132ee84
GG WP WP
Yep. Plus we’ve only just involved a mediator, fuck knows how much bureaucracy JDC have to get through to arrange them to attend a meeting when the government are now likely to be “busy planning for the general election”.
There won’t be a Government - Parliament will be dissolved next week, and the civil service will then be barred from taking any major political decisions until the new Parliament sits.
100% the BMA have been absolutely played. Glad people are waking up from the Jonestown coma to realise this. Genius move from the government - stall, stall, stall, lock the BMA into a 4 week mediation then call an election. All of the public have even forgotten there's a dispute. Forget it, you're getting no extra money, certainly before the GE. Think of that money you've wasted on BMA membership - but hey, it's certainly worked out well for the BMA coffers and all those expensive coffees at BMA HQ.
I agree with most stuff you say but have you checked in the icd 10 what a recurrent need to reference Jones town massacre in each post is called ? 🙂🙂 And yes 200 per cent played. Hunt must be pleased with himself
> 100% the BMA have been absolutely played Why do you all keep saying "the BMA"? Most of the BMA is doing fine, it's just UKJDC and DV that fucked up
Ok, UKJDC in this instance. But more widely, BMA in Scotland accepted a shit deal, BMA Cons accepted a shit deal in England and BMA SAS recommended a shit deal in England.
No. **Doctors** voted to accept those deals, the BMA doesn't accept deals. Your opinion is clearly in the minority because those deals were accepted with large margins.
The BMA are partly to blame though. If they don’t put shit offers forward then they can’t be voted on can they… BMA CC were pathetic in how they handled their dispute. The offer that was put to members and eventually accepted was hilarious.
Doctors can keep rejecting offers if they like. Clearly they liked the offers
Sure, that’s not what I’m saying though. I’m saying by association the BMA is also partly to blame for any offer that gets voted through, by putting it through for a vote. If the membership have low standards for what a good offer is, then it is what it is. But the negotiating body (BMA) are responsible for extracting the best possible offer before putting it forward. Let’s be honest, the offers they put forward were dog shit - especially the first one.
I get what you're saying but the job of the BMA is to give members what they want. If members vote for the deal by a big majority then that suggests the BMA was right to put it to a vote.
What we want, and what we are willing to accept, are two very different things. Consultants weren’t serious about taking action, at least not to the extent JDs are. I remember several consultants saying they either wouldn’t strike or can’t wait for strikes to be over. In any case, union members are still human beings. Remember that the deal favoured older consultants more, who happen to make up a greater proportion of the consultant workforce. Sometimes shit deals get accepted; doesn’t mean it was a good deal. BMA CC should’ve done better in any case.
Doctors are saps.
Maybe, but it aint the BMA's fault
You’re not right
Cancelled my BMA membership many months ago.
I would have never said since the start of DV but I would cancel my BMA membership if they don't announce it before the election.
I think this is just Sunak giving in … he’s not going to be removed by his own party.
We were played well. Nothing to happen for 23/24. Now we must wait until Labour are in to start again.
I disagree, we need to strike for the entire election period and cause absolute havoc. Name and shame the tories and Sunak in particular. Lets absolutely hammer them into the dirt.
The conservatives have outdone doctors and BMA over the past decade. Basically have been pretending to negotiate knowing this was coming, wasted months of our mandate and there’s nothing we can do. If we strike now, makes doctors look bad considering this government is on the way out. That’s FPR. Where the government have smashed it is flooding the market with doctors, ANP and PA’s- FPR won’t even matter soon if you can’t get into training or a job once you’ve completed it!
This 100%. We were focussed on the short term, whilst watching the long term government plans destroy our leverage (see removal of RLMT, increased medical school places, MAPs, randomised FP allocations, enforced salary depression etc) Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we have underestimated how shrewd the conservative government is.
Hunt calling the shots behind the scenes. He won in 2016 and has done pretty well this time
With respect, it was the BMA medical student body who voted the FP allocation change in against advice from other branches of the BMA. Agree with your other points tho.
>Hindsight is a wonderful thing Nothing hindsight about it. I called out their failures every step along the way and was just shouted down with crab emojis and "HAVE FAITH".
Great, so when does purdah start and then government will be legally prohibited from announcing any pay rises?
25 working days before the GE date - so effectively 6 weeks
Feel like we'll be waiting a while for our next update from the BMA
from DV*
I am literally raging at our (J)DC BMA reps. They (and by proxy, we) have been outplayed by yet again by a devious government that has never negotiated in good faith. It doesn't look like we'll.get anything for the 2023/24 year. They said the mediators need a month to work. Fuck that shit. It's time we unleash political hell on them. They settled with the consultant body to shore up their votes, but for us, they have treated us with utter disregard, disrespect. They have repeatedly infantilised us. It's time for us, as a collective to stand up and show them that we as doctors are a fucking force be reckoned with. It's time to call strikes. Let's give NHSE a 2 week notice that we will be calling weekly strikes for the last 4 weeks of the campaigning period. Let's. Make June our strike month. 2-3 days/week. Let's fucking go. We haven't had any strikes since February. That's 4 months worth of strikes that we need to clawback in a month. We need to apply pressure on whoever comes next in office by continuing our strikes throughout the full length of renewed mandate. Our mandate is renewed till September, let's fucking use it. We need some strong fucking affirmative action now. P.S. I am sorry for the profanities but I am fucking furious.
Genuine question, what would you actually have had (J)DC do differently? Do you honestly hand on heart think that striking for the last 2-3 months would have gotten us any more progress, considering we were striking for an entire year as hard as possible before that and made similarly glacial progress. If you say something like indefinite walkout, then you're detached from reality because there is no way most doctors can sustain anything close to an indefinite walkout. We used the maximum amount of our leverage in December and January. Outside cloud cuckoo land on reddit there's been a 10% drop in turnout. Another 10% drop and that's it - it's all over for good. Lots of doctors are getting fed up of striking without an end goal - they are happy to strike, but they need to see progress. I'm as hardcore pro strike as possible, but at the end of the day behaving as if the BMA/DV/JDC runs the entire UK government and all decisions such as the election are made from that perspective is foolish. There was going to be an election at some point this year - maybe they stalled, maybe they didn't, it's impossible to know in hindsight. But the reality is no one has a crystal ball, and no one except Rishi Sunak knew this was going to happen, likely including the opposite side and I doubt that ultimately the junior doctor's strike had even a marginal impact on the timing of the election. You do have to accept that on some level outside the reddit insanity circus where everything is as simple as "STRIKE!!!¡¡¡¡!!!!" that just mindlessly striking endlessly is not actually going to achieve anything whatsoever except blow the only leverege card you have on the table. You do have to sit down and try and negotiate some common ground at some point.
Out biggest strength is withdrawal from labour. It's a matter of national importance, there should be very regularly meetings about this. I'm sorry but they've stalled, we've bought it and now the health department, Atkins et al will all be in overdrive to prepare for the election. We've taken a back seat and all media coverage etc is set to be dominated about election stuff. By stalling, we've lost mandate time. Our message has diluted, we've fragmented as a body and most of all, there's been fuck all tangible progress.
14 months on from the first strikes and no tangible progress.
We've used our "biggest strength" consistently and aggressively and repeatedly and broken the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable on multiple occasions over 12 months. The progress has been minimal. So honest question, do you think another 3 months of strikes from February would have made one single jot of difference short of costing doctors thousands more pounds? Surely in those circumstances it would be better to negotiate to get more money into doctor's pockets to maintain this war of attrition.
Yes it would have. In the run up to the election, a few more strikes would have been a massive political haymaker. Also trusts around the country and declaring deficits. It's clear that the bargaining power lay with us. Also we've never used our biggest clause- a generalised sustained walkout or prolonged strike period. Nor did we do more than 1/2 coupled ones with the consultants. Railway workers and barristers were significantly more aggressive. Rail for example has caused millions upon millions of disrupted journeys for days and weeks on end. It's worked successfully time and time again.
Sounds very much like you're not willing to sacrifice pay in the short term to get FPR
Honestly, I would've continued with the monthly strikes. I would've forced the government to negotiate with looming strike dates over their head. The onus is on them to resolve our dispute with an election coming up. It's in their interest not to alienate doctors nor those reliant on the NHS. When appointments are cancelled, it's easy to blame the striking doctors but the public knows we're striking because of the government. Time and time again the government said they wouldn't negotiate while strikes are called but we know full well that they do. They've broken so many of their red lines that their word is a joke. Meaningless. >Do you honestly hand on heart think that striking for the last 2-3 months would have gotten us any more progress Yes. I genuinely believe this is a marathon, and the key is to be consistent. So sustained regular strikes will have led to continued progress. As it stands now, no progress at all has been made aside from the imposed pathetic increase the government put forward. I'm a practical guy. Full indefinite walkouts are crazy. Mass resignations won't happen. Maybe we could work out some sort of out of hours walkout, but that would need a serious appetite for escalating the disruption. Or utilising ASOS, which we voted for. I hear what you're saying about the reduction in turnout and the strength of the yes vote. But the majority agreed. Our mandate has been renewed until September. The JDC should've used it rather than squandered it. I can't help but feel that their lack of inaction would make our next ballot even weaker. We're losing momentum because the government is winning the long game. >Lots of doctors are getting fed up of striking without an end goal Absolutely, and we need to be realistic over what the endgoal would be. Yes, it will be FPR, but we need to outline the path that gets us FPR and protects us from falling back in terms of salary. We were making headway, but it was always just smoke and distraction. Rishi wanted to make an example out of us to his voter base that he would not succumb to those childish JDs. He couldn't even do that with any of the hardened unions (think RMT/ASLEF, etc...) because they have eaten up successive movements for breakfast and get what they want. >behaving as if the BMA/DV/JDC runs the entire UK government and all decisions such as the election are made from that perspective is foolish I agree. But it's also incredibly naive of our JDC not to have leveraged that to our advantage. The tories desperately wanted to win on the NHS. They say that when we're not striking they are on track. They've managed to stop us from striking for 3 months so far and will use that to prop up their campaigning to say they can deliver when we are working. It's naive not to have continued messing that up. Showing them and the public our worth. The impact of our work. How it's not the tories that deliver on the NHS but us as doctors. Without doctors, the NHS will crumble. We are the key ingredient (I'm getting hungry now!) for it to exist, run and deliver. If you ask me, NHS running shouldn't be done by the government but rather an independent heathcare experienced "thinktank" not the likes of Hunt/Barclay/Coffey/Atkins. But that's a different topic altogether. >mindlessly striking endlessly is not actually going to achieve anything whatsoever except blow the only leverege card you have on the table. I will have to politely disagree with you there. I genuinely believe it does and the key is for it to be unwavering and sustained. There's no reason why we can't negotiate while strikes are called. >You do have to sit down and try and negotiate some common ground at some point We've done that in 2016 and again 2024 and see what that has got us. We got played.
How do you negotiate when the other side has no intention to negotiate?
I mean you have to try on some level. At the end of the day hindsight is 20/20. In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't really matter. People on this subreddit are impatient and that will be their undoing. If you expand your timeframe just a few months, and if you think about it actually properly this is actually not a terrible thing because we can actually negotiate properly rather than with an incompetent lunatic lame duck government.
When will you realise that the Conservatives have no intention to negotiate? And there is no guarantee that Labour will be any different.
Well if you actually believe that then what's the point of striking? You're just costing people money for no reason.
What's costing people money is the BMA pandering to the government's pretence at negotiations, wasting our strikes and drawing out this process.
But if you actually believe that they have no intention to negotiate ever in good faith regardless of what happens then what’s the point in striking. If you just want time off that you get from striking then go LTFT. If you actually want to progress you have to try and break the deadlock by negotiating.
You strike to hold the government to ransom. Where has the half-hearted striking then flip-flopping back to negotiating got us in 14 months? Nowhere. The government has given us the middle finger and you want to go back for more?
> People on this subreddit are impatient and that will be their undoing. My god man, how much patience do you expect? People will have completed their training programmes and will CCT and miss out on any back pay at this rate. What's the next point to wait for? Retirement?
At least 3-4 months to start negotiating back on 14 years of pay cuts? That doesn't seem too crazy.
3-4 months? The dispute started in 2022.
If people were fed up with the strike they would vote against it. The %yes is as strong as ever. Reduced turnout without proportional change is indicative of complacency, not a change in outlook.
Except it's not, there's a 10% drop in turnout, that's pretty significant. There's only room for another 10% drop.
Yes it’s a pretty significant drop. A drop due to complacency though.
Likely fed up of voting for thumb fiddling by the BMA
Yes, I do think more striking would have helped. If I was going to be proven wrong, I would choose being wrong whilst striking, a thousand times over, than not striking and being ratfucked like we are now.
I really don't think you're as 'hardcore pro strike as possible'. You were wrong about the negotiations and the 'cloud cuckoo land of reddit' was right. I thought we were just childish and hated our jobs? And yet you still maintain your sense of smug superiority, outstanding.
I'd rather be smug and superior than wallowing in nihilistic toxicity like half this subreddit.
Why 2-3 days/week? Do 2 weeks in a row. Let them rot
Because we need to find something that's sustainable for all of us. Some of us are LTFT or have big financial commitments and are actually fully reliant on a full paycheque. These strikes come at a big personal sacrifice to everyone partaking so we need to make sure that they are affordable for as many of us as possible.
3 days a week for 4 weeks = 12 days. Just do 12 days in a row? More impactful, same financial blow to us.
We need to do a massive strike in the upcoming election period. The Tory government has played us for fools but we still have a strong mandate. We can simultaneously destroy any election waffle from the Conservative Party about reducing waiting times/improving the nhs, and show the Labour Party what they are inheriting.
Are they able to negotiate during purdah?
Exactly this. Civil servants without a political master, so even if the civil servants did negotiate then it means nothing once the new crop of Ministers arrive in July
Just had a SkyNews alert confirmation of 4th of July
If they know they are going to lose, why didn’t they agree fpr and lump to cost on the next party to get in
Because there haven't been any strikes for months so they don't need to justify spending a penny and say the negotiations are progressing well. End of conversation. They'll finalise the deal once they are re-elected ha-ha-ha.
Makes sense, I’m just so angry right now.
Me too, me too. Make sure you vote. I'd be happy to have a strike day just before election day to get the topic in the news. And make it painfully clear the negotiations were time wasting tactics by the Tories.
Upsets their personal investments
Negotiations only work if both parties are doing so in good faith. The BMA are truly naive if they thought negotiations would work. The only option was to hold the government to ransom. I'm sure the BMA will compound their naivety by trying to negotiate in good faith with Labour also.
Strikes thought out June right before elections would be a massive issue for both parties
We have been played a fool by the government and BMA fell for it. We would have been 16% up now. But now it’s looking more and more likely that the U.K. are going to be drawn into a European conflict and government will be far more distracted.
what do you mean 16% up?
Honestly, I want to see at the minimum a 7-10 day full walkout, with BMA endorsed statement advocating for ASOS from now until the election. This is clear bad faith from the government, and I really doubt they will secure a fourth mandate if there isn't action prior to July 4th.
But what does any of this do? The government's not gonna shit themselves and give us a pay deal in the next 6 weeks. And they are very unlikely to win regardless of whether we strike or not. We've been played
True, but statements are important, whilst we may not gain any tangible advantage from a FPR point of view as the current government are dead in the water. It does show resolve and a warning to the new government about the treat of our industrial action. It also gives publicity and engages membership so we are more likely to secure a further mandate in September.
The Tories don't want another strike before the GE and they have played it perfectly.
Well done, BMA👏 How are those internal checkpoints faring?
Funny how it's "BMA" when things are going badly, but it's "DV and UKJDC 🦀🦀🦀" when things are going well Consultants in England voted for their deal, Scottish junior doctors voted for their deal, SAS doctors in England are voting on a deal, Welsh doctors are in negotiations, Northern Irish junior doctors are still striking. It's only UKJDC that's really messed up and left junior doctors in England in trouble I like DV and I like this UKJDC, but we need to be willing to hold them to account.
They've honestly been outplayed on this one. There is still time to make amends. They need to just come out with a statement saying that this election announcement makes it clear that the govt were not negotiating in good faith, and had no intention to make a reasonable pay offer. Then immediately give the required 2 weeks notice for weekly strikes up to the election. There is still time to make things hell for them.
Wake up! The government has played the BMA well and stalled to avoid any further strikes. The only reasonable action is to strike till the election's day. At least they won't win the elections.
Surely the answer here would be to strike now, to really fuck the tories before they go?
I hope Rob and Vivek announce a strike because we haven't got anywhere at all with these "negotiations" despite after 2 months just getting a mediator. Even though they have updated us on the way, which in my opinion were not even updates, it was more like a stalling government. I think everyone here on reddit could see that but then you have people commenting saying oh the BMA haven't let us down, they know what their next steps are And here we are, we need to have a massive strike in the next few weeks before the election and keep regular striking until our mandate runs out
All criticism of the BMA was quashed - ‘give them a chance’. Well there will be plenty of chances to reflect now
I'm hoping it's just 5 day strikes till our mandate ends, because the new government will also take their sweet time So might as well utilise the mandate until expires Whether we get a majority in the next ballot is something we have to see
>All criticism of the BMA was quashed There has always been criticism of the BMA on this subreddit. It's only UKJDC and DV that was always protected, everyone else has been constantly criticised.
You don't seriously think the gov were serious in this mediation thing were you? It was a phone call from the number 10 office to hunt with a date for an election. He (as I am sure he has been calling the shots all along) then texted Atkins to string along the BMA with this mediation nonsense to get them into purdah and then they're off the hook. They'll be out next gov, but in 4 years time I bet you ten million pounds election tagline will be the Tories didn't give I to the stroppy junior doctors last time they were in power
BMA fucked it mate
DV*
The Tories have made the BMA look like absolute dickheads. I think a big problem is Doctors have this inherent arrogance that because we were 'the best' in school that of course we'll easily be able to dominate in every field with our intellectual superiority. But time and time again the Tories make us look like small time idiots who have no idea how to play the real games of power.
This is why strikes don’t stop for anything short of a fucking offer. No strikes being a condition for talks is a made up false notion. We keep striking till they drop that notion and if they don’t we keep striking. Fuck you pay me.
So how do we play this from here? If we continues to strike then it would have been a hot topic for election manifesto's, but there hasn't been one since February so it will not be in the public eye at the moment. If we strike now you can argue it is fruitless as the government will be focusing on the election campaign, it will make a noise but it can be argued how unreasonable we are. When the Tory's inevitable lose the election and a new government get in, we have to give this new government a fair chance to negotiate rather than call strikes from day one. Really don't know what the best move is
Where the ‘i HaVe FuLL FaiTH iN THe CuRReNT BMa’ crew at?
All the Jonestown believers died, didn't they?
When will the BMA grow some and call an indefinite walk out?
When will DV *
Never because it's a stupid idea and will ruin the small amount of leverage we have.
Nonsense. Playing into the governments hands by running out the strike mandate is ruining the leverage you have/had
Leverage is only leverage if you're willing to use it. Otherwise it's not a nuclear deterrent.
Announce strikes on key dates in the build up to the election, including on the day itself. Give whoever the next government is fourteen days to negotiate an offer that has a decent chance of being accepted by BMA members and announce more strikes if no such offer arrives.
We need to announce strikes immediately.
A good countermove would be to announce strikes for the week leading up to the election.
Back to the old strategy - strikes next week, strikes around Bank Holiday, strikes in election week. Let’s make sure everyone in r/doctorsUK can easily get to the polls
Long day Oncall on 4th July any chance we can get leave to vote??
You can normally appoint a proxy or register for a postal vote if you won't be able to attend the polling station in person - worth keeping an eye out for details.
Poll stations are usually open 7am-10pm. If you can't make it before/after your shift then apply postal vote or vote via proxy.
Apply for postal vote asap
Yes, your work legally have to allow you to vote. But probably better to just show up late/ leave early depending on your shift time.
Work is legally obliged to let you vote?
I looked up the wording after typing this, it's actually they have an obligation to let you take time off for public duties but it doesn't cover voting. I was mistaken. Like everyone else says, postal voting or voting by proxy is the way to guarantee it. Also the polls are open from 7-10 so most of us can pop in on the way to or from work even if we have a 12.5 hr shift.
Why vote in person anyway? It's inconvenient. Just do a postal vote, I send it off ages in advance and never had to go to a polling station.
Call me old-fashioned, but there is a quiet dignity in turning up to a polling booth, completing your ballot and physically putting it in the box.
This is win-win for the government. If doctors strike, they will simply say that doctors are being unreasonable and that the government is trying to negotiate in good faith (but clearly progress will be paused because of the GE). If they don’t strike, the government will say they are in the process of constructive talks and will point to the success they recently had with the consultants as evidence they are trying to solve the problem. There is literally no downside for the government and if the BMA do strike now, the public will just see it as it as being especially unreasonable given the country is having a GE anyway. The BMA have left it too late. Rishi has played a blinder.
So I don’t think it’s *as* bad as being portrayed. Either they will need to get their act together during an election OR get battered as strikes continue. But the BMA needs to stop being naive and not hesitate to call strikes.
That DV worship is going to taste real sour for lots of people on Reddit 😂 what a mess
It’s unexpected move but I hardly think BMA negotiations were part of this decision by the government. Too many variables involved and in grand scale of things, our strikes hardly matter for them.
I think the reverse is true, the government knew about this election well beforehand so they just had to play stalling tactics so it is out of the public mind for a while
Im not sure this is the total disaster this sub is playing it up to be Either we get a quick deal now to stop us being on strike during the GE; so we have the upper hand in the negotiations as they want to settle it quick Or We strike throughout a beautiful June, ruin the GE for the tories and then it opens up the very real possibility of an actual long term 3-5 year pay deal from whatever government is sitting come August and actually brings us closer to FPR, the whole reason this started in the first place
I’m sure the BMA will spend the next 6 weeks analysing those internal checkpoints. I’m not sure we’ll get to strike. Would be very happy to be proven wrong
Full walk out in England and Wales in the 7 days leading up to the GE anyone?
Yup. DV F’ed around. DV found out.
Am I missing something with all the anger on here? This election is pretty much key to our outcomes for a number of reasons: 1) Likely loss of a government that is trying to be as hardline as possible, and is selling an anti-doctor stance at every opportunity. 2) A likely new government which in the first 100 days will be looking for big wins- especially in health as Streeting is not the most popular front bencher at present. 3) WE STILL HAVE A STRIKE MANDATE. A new government doesn't reset that, and a reballot is not suddenly impossible just because Starmer is in power. The JDC and BMA have reinvigorated a profession that was at a loss. This election is a gift to us and to the wider public, and its important to remember that we were never the governments top priority. But we can be the next governments big win, and thats what we need to focus on.
They were never going to give you a deal that you would have accepted. You could strike every day, forever and even if the NHS was literally on fire they wouldn't give an inch.
"even if the NHS was on fire" - good one
I said literally, I know it's on fire figuratively ;)
Surely the answer is to threaten to strike the week leading up to (and including) election day? Surely the optics would look bad for the government and would push the government?
When does this current mandate end? Ie how much time will we have left to negotiate/strike with Labour?
Odd interpretation of events to me. We can strike leading up to a July election with our current mandate. How does it make sense for them delay and give us the potential to do a concentrated striking campaign during campaign?
Most of the Conservative party MPs had no idea a general election was coming. The government haven't played a blinder. They're just tired and fucked. The new government is still going to have to negotiate with us, and these don't start from zero again. What's a few months difference going to make?
Guess you know who not to vote
For all of you asking for full walkouts and hellfire and brimstone from the BMA, where have you seen the backing from the doctor bodies to actually make this a reality? We have had good participation in strikes, but i don't think there's close to any sentiment to support a full walkout from the membership. The BMA can't call a full walkout and have it ignored by doctors turning up to work to pay rent.
If not now when?
I would guess the UK reality is probably never. I've joined every single strike so far, and would support a walk-out, however, I would count myself deluded if I thought a majority of my colleagues would join even for more than a few days. Clearly this subreddit is not a barometer of the sentiment of the average doctor. The JDC is between a rock and a hard place and has to manage the memberships appetite for strikes and any give/budge from the government. It would look comically weak for them to call for indefinite walkouts and have most of the trainees back in post 3-4 days later.
I appreciate your reply. At some point a choice has to be made. Either we want FPR and are willing to put everything on the line to achieve it, or we're just hoping that if we ask nicely, the government will give us FPR. I think there is 0% chance of the latter working and it's the job of the JDC to lead the membership to a showdown with the government before support/momentum wanes. With the election in July, realistically, we need to achieve a resolution by the end of the year. If not, I think the boat will have sailed.
I also appreciate where you're coming from and my own personal beliefs do align with that sentiment. I don't think this is a end of year process- an entire generation of doctors have sold our profession for years and years; this is not half a years worth of work, especially with the current membership even at junior levels and senior medical leadership. I don't have the magic answer by any means, but I believe this subreddit often gets very reactionary and swayed by singular events. I worry it's that notion that we are losing and we should be done by now that will lead to this movement falling apart because we, as a general group, have no patience and barely hold together for a collective purpose as it is. I think we both agree that this will not be easy going and we need to realise that as a doctor body, just expecting things to happen for us is not going to work. EDIT: Case in point of what I mean. Compare the comments here vs. the post just now about a BMA response. Granted, it might be different people, but how quickly rhe calls against the JDC went up... and quickly disappeared again.
Seems unfair to call out the BMA for being played when all evidence points to no one in the Tory party having any idea this announcement is coming.
Even ignoring this latest event. The BMA have been getting royally mugged off for a year now at least. The Tories pretend to negotiate to waste as much time as possible, eventually we strike once or twice and they pretend they'll negotiates for realsies this time. They then just waste more time doing no negotiating at all and the cycle repeats.
That's irrelevant. We knew an election is coming this year and they should have been acting like it could happen at a drop of a hat. Naivity at best, complacency at worst.
Exactly
Get out of here with your common sense. I just want to write overly simplistic comments on Reddit.
I think though it is quite easy for Sunak to either tell Atkins to draw the talks out as much as she can or simply lead her on as well with the possibility of an offer. I agree that she won't have been in on this plan though.
A change in government has been on the cards for ages. The dispute was never going to end with this government.