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Swedish nurses are to intensify their ongoing strike action, reports online news portal thelocal.se.
At the annual congress of Vårdförbundet – the Swedish Association of Healthcare Professionals – which took place on Tuesday, members voted to extend the action begun in April over equality of pay for women.
On 29 May, more than 4,000 healthcare professionals are to walk out, bringing the total number of striking nurses to 10,200.
Vårdförbundet’s chair Anna-Karin Eklund told news agency TT: “The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) has failed to react to our industrial action so far, which is why we are now forced to go further.”
SALAR chairperson Ingela Gartner Sundström said: “I don’t think this is the right way to go when we are about to enter into negotiations. It’s not like more industrial action is going to increase the willingness of employers to pay higher wages.”
In a response to a recent editorial in Dagens Nyheter newspaper in support of SALAR’s position, Vårdförbundet said that the recent general election was won with promises of an improvement of healthcare services. “It is time to put words into action and give midwives, biomedical analytics, radiology nurses and nurses a better pay deal,” the response says.
