Officers at the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) are set to strike for the first time in the history of the service.
The strike action, scheduled for August 15, comes after a prolonged pay dispute, according to a press release from Nautilus International, the union representing RFA officers.
The strike will commence at 00:01 BST and last until 23:59 BST on August 15. This follows a period of continuous action short of a strike since June 1. The union states that RFA officers have faced a real-term pay cut of over 30% since 2010, with a below-inflation pay rise of 4.5% imposed in November 2023.
Nautilus International reported overwhelming support for the industrial action, with 85% of members voting for action short of a strike and 79% voting for strike action.
“Strike action is always a last resort for us, but there is a palpable strength of feeling among our members at the RFA,” said Martyn Gray, Nautilus International’s Director of Organising.
“Over 14 years of cuts and pay restraint, despite the RFA undertaking increasingly complex operations, have taken their toll. Our members are overworked, underpaid and undervalued.”
Gray noted that this unprecedented strike action highlights the severe issues within the RFA, which is grappling with a recruitment and retention crisis and low morale across the workforce.
“The fact this is the first time RFA officers will take strike action in history is a scathing indictment on the state of the service,” he added.
Despite early discussions with the Ministry of Defence following the recent general election, Nautilus International reports that they have yet to receive a new and improved pay offer for their members. “This is unacceptable and leaves us no option but to escalate from action short of strike to full strike action,” Gray stated.
“Our message is simple: to avoid disruption at the RFA, who are vital to the UK’s naval capabilities, we need a pay offer that reflects the high rate of inflation and a pathway to pay restoration. We remain committed to working with government to achieve that.”
This historic strike underscores the broader challenges faced by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in maintaining its operational effectiveness and supporting its personnel.
Did our new Chancellor forget about the RFA ?
She’s probably never heard of it 🤔
Civil Servants so get 5%.
Merely the tip of the iceberg. The Chancellor has opened a can of worms that is going to cause her no end of problems. Would have been far better to re-evaluate people’s pay and then index link it indefinately.
That’s pretty much what she is doing
Jim, that is so far from the truth it’s in the stratosphere 🚀. She’s just handing out pay rises with no thought behind them at all, otherwise she would have had the brain power to add the RFA into the services pay award. Mind you, nobody put much thought into that either.
Well if she is doing that she needs to make it crystal clear plus set out primary legislation to set in place a mechanism for all UK workers in critical roles to receive pay increases so there are never any strikes ever again and we can get on with rebuilding the country.
Simple really and would take the wind out of the Tories sails.
Just pay them the increase they are after .
There are not that many of them and Its not like they are Jr doctors who have hoodwinked the country on how poor they are
(They ain’t once they get past year one and start adding in allowances)
I know a fair few senior RFA Officers from their time in this part of the world. All are utterly hacked off but at the same time very conflicted that they are forced to take this route.
The big issue is that the Armed forces get a pay rise but the RFA gets less coming under civil service settlements and its usually a fair wack below the armed forces increase.
It will be interesting to see what Wes Streeting does with the NHS in general. His plan to increase use of the private sector is a good one.
The problem with the NHS unions is they are very good at pushing the publics buttons, giving disingenuous info, mentioning new nurses poor pay, without mentioning how fast it actually rises within a few years.
Use of the private sector is currently regarded as a temporary measure, I suspect it will become the norm, as part of a long term private/ public partnership.
What does it matter to the public, if its ‘free’ at the point of access?
Unfortunately Wes will come under severe left wing fire for any changes or reform he tries to implement.
By ecample, they have to do something about the widespread abuse of the prescription system too.
A small proportion of the population pay, while huge numbers pay nothing. Why for instance, does someone with diabetes get all their prescriptions foc and not just the related meds I.e insulin??
A huge amount of unused expensive medication is destroyed…
Madness, but no Heath Secretary has had the nerve to deal with it.
The left wing calls of free prescriptions for all would see even more wasted.
Billions goes into that hole alone.
Before my father passed away, he was shuffled between three hospitals, all of which carried out the same tests and scans, because they couldn’t find the results on the system!
Scale that up on a national basis, how much is lost there?
I wish Wes the best of luck trying to get the NHS in some sort of order. If he can get a handle on its issues, many billions of wasted money can be steadily redirected to front line health care.
Billions that could be spent sending your loved ones to the best hospitals for their care, private or NHS.
John a couple of things there I would like to discuss.
first on medication waste…it’s around £300million a year….we get £600 million in revenue from prescription charges per year…60% of the items have a charge…but the total cost of all community prescribing was 9.5 billion pounds…so essentially 95% of the cost of medication comes from NHS budgets…so it’s always been free..the charge for under 60s is tokenism….the reason is that if your on complex long term medication your not going to be able to afford it ( a diabetic would need for fork out around £5000 per year and that’s a cheap set of drugs)….
The scale of the waste is actually very small..if you include all hospitals, community and other settings the total prescription bill is around 25billion a year..so £300 million in waste is around 1%…which is not a huge amount..
so let’s look at what cases waste..and what we class as waste
1) poor efficacy, because the patient does not follow the instructions ( basically the drug does not work well because some people never or cannot follow instructions)…not sure how to stop people not following instructions.
2) stockpiling…some people simply lie and order to much so they have a supply.people are people and unless we search their houses ?
3) people die…this is actually a lot….and we cannot predict or prevent.
4) intentional non adherence..people just stop taking the drug before they are meant to…against not sure how you force a drug down someone’s throat.
5) unintentional non adherence..basically the person gets a side effect and cannot continue taking the medication…
so that 1% waste is problematic to say the least…it’s built in inefficienty around human behaviour and the fact we die, get better, have side effects or are bloody minded.
in regards to a private providers making it better, essentially our entire medication delivery system into the community is a private system..the GPS who prescribed the medication are working for privately owned medication and the pharmacies that dispense the medication are privately owned businesses….not a single one is state owned or NHS…and the waste is almost entirely down to how members of the public act, various NHS systems have tried to get modification of the publics behaviour…but that last 1% is pretty intractable….when you consider the totally private US health system runs on around 25% of all healthcare expenditures being wasted, 1% is pretty good.
Finally why do we destroy medication when it has been dispensed..
1) if you look at any box of medicine it will have a set of temperatures it needs to be stored at…And importantly that is lower than the temperature a lot of people houses reach…and as no drug companies will guarantee the efficacy of a drug that has stored outside of these parameters…we would be giving out drugs that may not work…I assure you around 100 court cases a year would cost more than the hundred or so million pounds of drugs we destroyed..and anyone that did not get better and had reissued drugs would take the provider to court.
2) infection prevention control…many people who have prescriptions are also carriers of things like MRSA ( infact those with cronic illness will be more likely to have a nasty)…therefore those drugs would be an infection risk…again court cases….
so all in all…they are all dispensed correctly..people choose not to take them or are unable to take them due to death or side effects..and taking them back and reusing them would infact potentially cause harm and a lot of court cases….so how would you deal with the 1%……?
the case of the 3 hospitals….you will not be aware, but the NHS has you consider it does not infact exists ( there is no NHS )…it’s a badge that around 40,000 different organisations are given permission to use, these organisations have a contract to provide NHS services ( around 90% are private business and 10% state owned businesses) …but those different hospitals will all be different business each with their own IT systems..and the law prevents them from having shared IT and information systems….which means all medical records have to be shared manually and by law you have to select what bits will be shared ( your not allowed to share everything..a busy healthcare professional has to decide what is allowed to be shared…once I had a job in which I would send hours reading though just one set of medical records to agree what would be shared…share the wrong thing and you could be fined)….if we did have a single NHS as most people think we do..then that information could be shared on a single IT platform and we would get a lot of efficiency…as it is 50,000 different systems that are not allowed to fully share because of the laws of the land…makes for difficulties.
Finally the idea of Using private care….this is unfortunately BS for a number of reasons.
1) NHS systems are not idiots, they aready have contracts with every private hospital ( remember around 50,000 organisations with contracts) and the NHS buys up every bit of spare capacity these private hospitals will sell at NHS tariffs…
2) the cost difference between what the NHS will pay and what private hospitals can charge..as an example the NHS tarif for a knee replacement is around £5000, private hospitals charge £15,000-18,000 for a knee replacement..this means that all we can ever buy is their spare capacity they cannot fill…and they will not make more capacity..because if they actually made capacity they would want to be paid £15,000-18,000…as £5000 is a loss maker for them ( they only take them as it fills surgical slots that would otherwise be empty and cost and no private company will ever run an nhs hospital for that reason..one company tried and gave the contract back).
3) staff…the people undertaking the private surgery are the same people who work in NHS theatres ( all the same drs)…so if you increase your private capacity you reduce your NHS capacity …..unless you up your healthcare professional pay
and get more immigrants in…( we are down around 400,000 healthcare professionals in this country…we import 300,000 and run vacancies on 100,000).
“law prevents them from having shared IT and information systems”
What is the logic behind this?
Well it’s complex as hell but the primary legislation includes:
1) data protection act.
2) human rights act.
3) health and social care act 2012
4) NHS act 2006.
guidance can be found from the:
1)information commissioners office, guidance ( these are the people who fine the different NHS organisations when they get it wrong…17.5million pounds or 4% of an NHS organisations operating budget…one trust I used to have to keep an eye on got on the wrong end of a data sharing issue and ended up fined 4 million pounds…)
2) Caldicott 1
3) Caldicott 2
If you sum it all up…as the NHS is not an organisation, but is instead a multitude of independent organisations ( 50,000ish )..they must each have their own data systems and data security…and they are not allowed to share these…( in the same way as Barclays Bank and Santander must have separate systems)…. Healthcare information shared between providers must:
1) be at the express permission of the person the data is about.no permission no share.
2) only the specify data that person would expect you to share
3) only with very specific people and the organisation that are directly responsible for the care of that person and at the time they are caring for that person..
4) all data shared must be reviewed by a responsible healthcare professionals to ensure there is nothing harmful shared.
so essentially there is no legal way one NHS provider can be set up to just access another providers data….each request has to be specific and proportional..some very basic data can be set up for wider sharing at the patients permission..( age, drug allergies) but most data has to have a specific request attached to it…..if the NHS was what most people think it is a single United public sector provider it would be a lot easier to sort a single record as legally it would be considered a single entity.
I was recently sat in a pharmacy trying to get my fathers medication corrected after multiple mistakes from GP, carers and the pharmacy itself, long story wont go into it.
Had to make 3 visits over 3 days sitting waiting for medication to be amended and re-packaged. 2 of those visits people came in asking for medication to be handed over packages and informed what it is, immediate reply from the people collecting this is the wrong one again. Pharmacy blames the GP prescription and the roundabout begins again.
However in both instances the packages with the incorrect medication walked straight out the door with the person collecting. If its incorrect why is it not retained by the pharmacy!? Obviously they bill the NHS and couldnt care less.
No idea how many times this happens daily across the UK but its a complete joke. Money just being thrown away for no reason at all.
It may take some time for the real world to knock pragmatism into the Chancellor. RFA, civilian medics and other civil servants working intimately with the military on operations need a pay mechanism that recognises their form of service.
Their pay is pretty awful. It’s contributing to recruiting and retention problems. It’s now also leading to poor industrial relations at the time when we need to rebuild our hollowed out defence capabilities to meet increased external threat. I suggest the Treasury just shuts up and writes the cheque. They can take the money out of all “the nice to haves” nonsense the government currently splashes out on.
Good for them.
Military pay is a joke as well. They say the Army can’t strike, but what are they going to do if SNCO’s just don’t turn up one day? Use up what little prison cells the country has left?
Considering the tiny size of the RFA, just get them good pay rises and start bringing them back up to strength….
Can’t do that they haven’t got a union the Labour Party relies on for support/donations. They are well down the pecking order.
O/T there is even talk of the BMA having anther go next year🙄
That is a problem with any Labour govenment. They are chained to the Unions, this effects policy and spending choices.
Yes, heard that one too!
The BMA and Royal colleges are in no way and never have been affiliated with the Labour Party…these are middle class institutions dedicated to the protection of middle class power…they pretty much are the antithesis of a workers Union.
If you say so but the little nob popping up from them in interviews is a bloody communist! He couldn’t wait to say strike action works and stand by for more,he even boasted he told Streeting as much.
Isn’t his father an investment banker and a millionaire if is the one I am thinking off ?
The prat with glasses who buggered off on holiday during one strike😡
Don’t get me wrong..they are there to defend drs to the hilt….they are a nightmare to deal with..pay is the least problem…but these guys are middle class professionals protectionists…not communists..infact the first thing the communists did in Russia was shoot these guys….
The big problem with the BMA is that they strictly control what can be done around healthcare…and they have massive political power…the conservative government played all big with the strikes…but one of the big reasons the NHS is in the mess it is, is that the conservative administration in 2010 were in the pockets of the medical profession and it basically did a hack job during the Langley reforms in 2011/12 in which the conservatives took a hatchet to general management in the primary care trusts ( the organisations that managed the providers contracts and ensured we got value for money/decided what care was needed)…and gave all the power to Drs….who on the whole quit frankly did not know very much about how to run a health system generally….so all the experts in running health systems were sacked and GPS were given all the power….and they knew sod all about what to do…when asked the question…so how are you saving 5% off your mental health budget..and reducing bed days ????
As others have said, they are such a small cohort, and considering time spent at sea and in areas of potential conflict they definitely deserve a decent pay rise. My brother was ex Merchant and told me that the “Red Duster” crews received “add pay” for sailing to certain parts of the world.
Pay the RFA a decent wage for a job VERY, VERY well done.
RFA a key enabler for the RN World Wide often taking the place of a Warship. They should be paid their worth which should be above the Merchant Fleet with the perks they once had and deserve. Small they may be in number but deliver way more and so professional compared to others that undertake similar roles around the World. UK Gov and MOD pay these key people what they deserve as they as much as those in the other Services defend the freedoms we all enjoy.
They cannot be compared to others in Gov service as they are at Sea, an environment that is hard and difficult yet they always deliver when asked. I salute all those in the RFA as the RN would never be able to deliver without them.
I honestly don’t understand why there would be different pay rates for RN officers and RFA officers….after all where the RN are so are the RFA.
My understanding is that is a far different role and much more aligned to being a merchant mariner than an RN officer. The levels of training in particular are vastly different. To be a Captain of an RFA vessel you need to hold a Master Mariner’s Ticket; by no means a small feat. Its complex but they have different tonnage limits and experience/qualification requirements. It’s kind of like the different kinds of driving licenses you get.
To be CO of an RN warship you do not need this, rather (and quite famously in the Service) you get no civvy qualifications for driving warships. However you need countless hours on the bridge of a ship and in an Operations room. You need to know how to fight the ship. That includes constant training, PWO course etc. There is also a significant difference in the leadership and management required in each role; similar but different. An RFA officer does a 10-week stint at BRNC prior to joining the Fleet, the RN Officer does 30-weeks before taking further specialist training.
The RFA Officer routinely operates on rotations of 3 months underway, whilst an RN officer will join the ship for 2 years at a time regardless of Operational programme. If the RFA Officer spends over 6 months deployed, they can claim back their income tax, not the case for members of the Armed Forces. But the disruption of the RN lifestyle is compensated by the X-Factor (apparently!). The RFA Officer has far more rights with regard to health and safety, terms and conditions at work, downtime, obviously the right to unionise etc. Even though they are both grey-hulled ships, they are completely different beasts. The analogy I would use is one is driving an HGV and one is driving a main battle tank. They require a very different skillset, mindset and experience.
The problem is the closest comparison is the Merchant Fleet which is far below the specialist skillset of the RFA. Deloitte tried to do an independent pay review in 2010/11 but couldn’t find any other organisations to compare them to. It’s a truly unique capability that supports not just the RN but the global influence of UK PLC. They absolutely deserve to be paid appropriately.
Hope this answers some of your Qs but let me know if there is anything specific.
NDG
Nice summary and your analogy of driving an HGV and a MBT is good. Seeing them as Civil Servants is one thing but treating them a Civil Servants (pay and conditions of service) is off course. How can they say to the boss, “it’s my kids school leaving event next Wednesday can I have a days leave?” or go to an after work leaving do in the pub — things we nine-to-fivers took for granted. Being at sea is a 7 x 24 task and being in a Grey-hulled RFA vessel is different — they are a public face of the UK both a sea when in a port quite different from a commercial Red Ensign vessel. Particularly in foreign ports where visible and behavioural standards are expected; social, diplomatic and press events are attended or hosted. One of the reasons that they undertake the BRNC course. Their fundamental and highly transferrable professional skills and standards are laid down by the UN’s International Maritime Organisation and nationally exercised, not by MOD, but by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency.
TAA
A couple of points. First is training, unless you’re already qualified in the role you’re going into, you’ll do the 11 weeks of uselessness at BRNC then go on further train 3-5 years as a cadet depending on how much sea-time they can get you in your sea phases. Compare that to the RN where I could have an HNC in computing and IT with a waiver then do 30 weeks at BRNC and be a sub-lieutenant warfare officer.
Second is on tax, a merchant seafarer needs to be outside British waters for over 6 months to benefit from the SED, not just on ship. I’ve not met many RFA who reached that requirement.
Compared to the rest of the merchant the RFA is getting a really raw deal, I’ve been working agency since I left and the lowest wage I’ve had (pro rata obviously) has been over 10k more than the Band above what I had in the RFA and working less (Commercially leave is time for time, so on ship for 6 months). On top of that I don’t have to do all of the extras like dealing with the RN duties like Fost ect.
On a tangent, I had an RN officer come onboard a ship I was working on, they asked how many crew we had, we told them that we had 22 with 7 in the engine room. They asked us how we handled the ship with that few and what we do when there’s a malfunction. Had to keep explaining to them that we just fix it.
Edited as my original post sounded more argumentative than I meant.
G, thanks for the reply. Really interesting. Yes I am RN, I went from 210 people on a frigate to 12 on a Swire tender that we used as a patrol boat in the Indian Ocean. Very much the same experience. Oh you have 2 engineers that do everything…
A few RFA mates often complain about the SED complexity and how HR regularly let them down by over promising deployed time or ships programmes changing that see them in UK waters. I think it is sold to the crew as a huge benefit of being RFA compared to RN that often fails to materialise.
Apologies for the over-simplifications and thanks for your clarification. Great to have an actual mariners perspective!
No problems, sounds like the tender/patrol boat would have been an “interesting” trip.
This needs to be sorted by CSG 2025… doesn’t it?! Otherwise they mayn’t get past the Suez! Seriously, why can’t both sides come to some middle ground and some pragmatism and get on?
Quentin, mate, pragmatism? When politicians are involved..?
Oh, if only..!
Cheers CR
Quentin, mate, pragmatism with politicians involved?
Oh if only..!
Cheers CR
Evening CR, if they can’t see that the RFA are the life blood of navy and its ops they should be doing a different job! Fair pay and stop the faffing about. The RN is more than a fishing fleet and needs the RFA!
Curious if the RFA rates of pay would be same, or less or more, than those in the maritime industry?Anyone here know?