Pat Cullen initially joined the world’s largest nursing union as a result of it by no means went on strike however has turn out to be the primary head of the Royal Faculty of Nursing to steer a walk-out in its 106-year historical past.
“After I joined the Royal Faculty of Nursing 41 years in the past, I joined as a result of it was a non-striking union,” she informed the Guardian on the day that the union’s long-running industrial motion formally got here to an finish on 27 June.
“However as time has moved on, and the disaster inside nursing has heightened and the federal government has appeared unwilling to pay attention, it has turn out to be clear that the one method to have nurses’ voices heard was to withdraw their labour.”
Cullen was talking hours after it was confirmed that the union had not secured sufficient votes to restart strikes, bringing to an finish a collection of walkouts that lasted the most effective a part of six months and threatened at instances to cripple the NHS.
The vote, through which 84% of respondents voted for strike motion however solely 43% of members responded – under the 50% threshold wanted to approve a brand new spherical of strikes – additionally introduced an finish to a turbulent few months for Cullen herself.
Having been heralded as a champion of the labour motion on the peak of the strikes, Cullen then suffered a backlash from a lot of her personal members when she advisable they settle for the federal government’s supply of a 5% pay rise, plus a one-off cost of at the very least £1,655. Some consider this week’s failure to safe sufficient votes to return on strike is an extra blow to her authority.
“Pat was nice at energising members after we first went out on strike,” says one RCN member who didn’t need to be recognized. “However after that she made a collection of strategic failures: she struck a below-inflation pay deal, she misplaced a vote to approve it after which failed to clarify to members why she wished to return on strike over a deal she negotiated.”
Cullen insists such criticism is unfair: she negotiated the most effective deal she may, and when it was rejected by members, she needed to mirror their considerations by balloting once more for strikes.
“I used to be in these negotiations day and evening with the federal government, and I’ve mentioned all alongside that we received all the things off the desk that we may presumably get off it,” she says. “I informed the federal government that the non-consolidate [one-off] cost was going to be a significant problem, and so it proved.”
Nonetheless, she provides the union’s marketing campaign for larger pay has not ended. “There’s a mandate from nursing employees to have their voices heard,” she says. “We’ve got taken strike motion for the primary time in 106 years. You may’t simply ignore their voice as a result of we haven’t met these thresholds this time round.”
Cullen, 59, began as a nurse in Belfast in 1982. She was one among seven siblings, 5 of whom turned nurses. None of her sisters who nonetheless work as nurses have been affected by her pay negotiations, as all of them work in Northern Eire, however she says they have been cheering her on from the sidelines.
“They’re all very very supportive,” she says. “And I suppose would say that they wouldn’t count on something much less from me.”
Those that negotiated with Cullen throughout an intense three-week spherical of talks earlier this yr say she was a formidable interlocutor: steely, however able to puncture the strain with a flash of humour. Additionally they say she sometimes misrepresented what occurred within the negotiating room to the press afterwards: one thing she denies.
Having insisted for months they might not re-open the 2022/23 pay deal, ministers ultimately backed down with their supply of a one-off sum. Cullen says her success was right down to nurses’ willingness to remain out on strike and the continued public help for them throughout that interval.
Cullen individually secured a promise from ministers to look right into a separate pay construction in future years, which infuriated different unions, who warn their negotiating place could be weakened.
“[The collective pay arrangement] doesn’t recognise the fashionable, transformative expertise and experience of the nurses inside the complicated methods we work in in 2023,” she says. RCN officers say the union now desires to go away the collective system, referred to as Agenda for Change, solely – a transfer that will essentially change the best way NHS pay is negotiated.
Cullen’s actual issues began after the deal was agreed. Having organised a extremely profitable strike marketing campaign, the RCN boss discovered it more durable to steer a fired-up membership they need to now stand down. A faction inside the union referred to as NHS Staff Say No efficiently led a push to vote it down, which members did by 54% to 46%.
Cullen bats away recommendations she might need resigned at that time. “I by no means give up when a job’s not executed,” she says. “It by no means entered my psyche for one minute to really stroll away and go away these and abandon the occupation at a time once they wanted this school.”
Nonetheless, the poll left scars. Some members organised a petition to name a unprecedented basic assembly to oust her; the management threatened to name within the police, alleging that signatures had been solid.
And when she went again to members as soon as extra over the previous couple of weeks to induce them to strike once more, frictions resurfaced, with many members saying they have been confused as to why she had backed the deal however was now urging them to strike over it.
The RCN lately fired three organisers after they despatched out materials to members which was deemed to be crucial of its management. As company employees, they have been dismissed summarily and, they allege, with out recourse to union illustration of their very own. Cullen refuses to remark, saying the RCN is investigating the circumstances that led as much as their dismissal.
Cullen nonetheless insists her job isn’t executed, and that she intends to stay as head of the union for the foreseeable future. “We’re on a journey,” she says. “I began that journey with the occupation with our first strike in 106 years. And I’ll proceed on this journey till each single one among our nurses’ voices are heard.”