More than 15,000 ambulance workers across 11 trusts including West Midlands Ambulance Service begin voting on possible strike action today.
Thousands more NHS workers will also be balloted across other NHS trusts, with more votes set to follow.
Ambulance workers from trusts in England and Wales will take part in the vote, which closes on 29 November, and any potential strike action could take place before Christmas.
The strike ballots follow consultative votes across all the trusts in which workers voted strongly in favour of strike action.
Workers are angry over the Government’s imposed 4 per cent pay award – another massive real terms pay cut – as well as unsafe staffing levels across the ambulance service.
Rachel Harrison, GMB Acting National Secretary, said:
“Ambulance workers don’t do this lightly – and this would be the biggest ambulance strike for 30 years.
“But more than ten years of pay cuts, plus the cost-of-living crisis, means workers can’t make ends meet. They are desperate.
“But this is much more about patient safety at least as much about pay. Delays up to 26 hours and 135,000 vacancies across the NHS mean a third of GMB ambulance workers think a delay they’ve been involved with has led to a death.
“Ambulance workers have been telling the Government for years things are unsafe. No one is listening. What else can they do?”
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