Following a series of meetings with the radiographers' union, the U.K. Department of Health in late January offered radiographers a pay raise of around 3% that the Society of Radiographers (SoR) President Karen Smith said has met the society's objectives in seeking a pay raise in line with inflation.
In response, the society has called off a planned strike and has until February 20 to accept the offer.
"We are aware that some … feel it is unfair," Smith wrote in a statement on the SOR website. "We agree that it's unfair. We pushed as far as we could but the minister [of health] would not be pushed any further… We worked hard on your behalf to achieve the very best deal that we could. But that's not to say that we will not continue to make representations on your behalf."
In another article on the site, union member Paul Maloney called the offer a clear victory for strikers.
The offer presented by the Department of Health and now under consideration "meets the main objective we set when we decided to ballot members on strike action last September and exceeds inflation as measured by the consumer price index," Maloney wrote.
He cautioned that the offer has not yet been replicated in Northern Ireland, so until that happens the breakthrough cannot be called a total victory.
"Throughout the campaign, the government has insisted that only a nonconsolidated increase was possible and only if we agreed to give up increments for everyone for a year," Maloney wrote.
The offer meets three goals the union laid out when they decided in October to initiate the strike: an increase higher than the inflation rate, preservation of pay increments, and a consolidated increase. The threat to eliminate 10,000 jobs was dropped, as well, he said, proving it to be an idle threat.
"Now, members will decide if the offer is good enough to accept," Maloney wrote. "But whatever the outcome of the consultation, I think we can safely say we have won!"
