Members of the Royal College of Midwives have voted to strike in Northern Ireland for the first time in the organisation’s 134-year history.
The RCM said on Tuesday its members in the region would stop working for four hours on 30 April.
The Northern Irish midwives voted by a margin of 9-1 to take industrial action over a 1% pay claim. They are angry about being excluded from the pay rise given to their colleagues in England and Wales.
Breedagh Hughes, the RCM’s Northern Ireland director, said: “Not one woman will be put at risk, there will be full emergency cover provided. Of course if the midwives on the picket line are called in to make up the numbers, they will do that.”
However, Hughes warned of further industrial action by her members from 1-7 May that would have a bigger impact on services. She said: “The real message will be the following week when midwives start counting the hours they currently work, and which they are not paid for, and they submit a bill to their employer asking to be paid for the breaks they do not get on a 12-hour shift and the hour or two hours they stay behind and work every day.
“From our experience, we know that every midwife works about three hours’ unpaid work every single week of their working lives and they have never claimed for that.”
The RCM appealed for talks with the devolved health minister, Jim Wells, to try to resolve the pay dispute.
