An overwhelming majority of nurses have voted Yes to going on strike, The Icelandic Nurses’ Association has announced. Voter participation was also very high. If nothing changes, the strike will begin on June 22nd.
As reported, the nurses have been in an extended wage dispute with the government, and have not had a valid contract for 15 months.
In all, 82.2% of nurses’ union members took part in the vote, with 85.5% voting in favour of going on strike, 13.3% voting against it, and 1.2%—26 in all—submitting blank ballots.
Unless state arbitrators are able to strike some kind of wage agreement in time, the strike will commence at 08:00 Icelandic time on June 22th. As the borders are due to fully open for tourism on June 15th, requiring testing potentially hundreds of samples for the novel coronavirus each day, the pressure is on to settle the dispute as soon as possible.
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