HEALTH service workers will take to the picket lines today in the first wave of strike action over staffing and pay.
Unison members employed in domestic and sterile services are to stage walkouts as part of industrial action in which certain staff will withdraw labour on specific days over the next three months.
The Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, Antrim Area Hospital and Belfast City Hospital will be affected.
However, all Unison members will today 'work to rule' - with nurses, ambulance staff, support services, administration and clerical workers, managers, social services and social care workers, professional and technical staff among those taking part.
The move follows the collapse of pay talks between trade unions and the Department of Health last Friday.
Similar 'phased' action is planned for the beginning of next month by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), with an all-out strike date set for December 18 - the first in its 103-year history.
The department has said it is "deeply disappointed" with the breakdown in negotiations and described walkouts as "damaging".
Permanent Secretary Richard Pengelly, who is the most senior decision maker in the north's health service in the absence of a minister, cited "budgetary constraints" for the reduced pay offer, which equates to £51 million of this year's budget.
Unison's regional secretary Patricia McKeown said the action should serve as a "reality check" to those running the health service.
"They now must deliver for the public and the workforce" she said.
Unison, which represents almost 30,000 healthcare employees said the current crisis facing the healthcare sector was not of the workers' "own making".
"Our members are taking the brave step of being the first workers to take industrial action. They are determined to fight for justice on both pay and staffing levels," Ms McKeown said.
"Those workers on the picket lines at the Ulster Hospital include a domestic services worker who has just received the prestigious Skills for Health Support Worker Award 2019 – an award covering the NHS across the whole of the UK.
"We know that the public is supportive of our campaign for pay justice and we ask that they show their support for their health workers today and in the weeks to come."
Department officials last week had asked unions to defer action in light of winter pressures and spiralling waiting lists.
However, RCN chief Pat Cullen hit back, branding the pay offer as an "insult to nursing and a blow to patient care" and said it had "affirmed their decision" to strike.
