UK doctors to vote on strike action

Ballot papers will be sent to 103,000 members of the British Medical Association (BMA), with the result due at the end of the month, as the UK government has not reopened talks with the health unions about its plans to cut their pension entitlements and make them work longer.

Condemning the controversial pension reforms that will rise the retirement age from 65 to 68, the union said that higher-paid National Health Service (NHS) staff already pay more for their pension than most other public sector workers.

”The BMA has continued to lobby the Department of Health and the Treasury to return to meaningful talks. But in February 2012, with no movement from the Government, and the strength of feeling among doctors very clear, BMA Council decided it had no alternative but to ballot on industrial action,” read a BMA statement.

Meanwhile, Alan Robertson, chairman of the BMA’s pension committee, said the ”unnecessary and unfair” changes to the country’s pay and pension system has provoked “real anger amongst hard working doctors about the way they have been treated.”

Last week on May 10, hundreds of thousands of British public sector workers including policemen, lecturers and civil servants held demonstrations against the Tory-led government’s austerity measures.

SSM/MF/HE

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