BMA faces strike action from own staff over paltry pay offer

Doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) faces strike action from its own clerical staff over its long refusal to offer an adequate pay settlement. The disappointing news comes just as NHS doctors begin five days of strike action against health secretary Wes Streeting’s damaging intransigence over doctors’ demands for pay restoration after years of real-terms cuts by Tory governments.

Streeting is enthusiastically taking over for the red (Tory) team, imposing further privatisation and paltry pay rises as part of his ten-year ‘Darzi‘ slash-and-burn plan. The BMA has offered a mere 2% rise, far below the current UK rate of inflation after years of a rampant ‘cost of corporate greed crisis’ that has caused prices of energy and other essentials to rocket.

BMA staff not being paid enough

The GMB union, which represents three quarters of the BMA’s internal staff, is preparing to ballot staff for strike action and ‘ASOS’ – action short of a strike and has described the BMA’s stance as hypocritical, saying that BMA clerical staff have suffered a real-terms pay cut of 17% since 2012. A preliminary survey of GMB staff working at the BMA indicated that more than nine out of ten supported industrial action.

The BMA claims it is facing “extremely challenging financial constraints” but offering above market rates of pay – again demonstrating the way in which pay cuts in one sector have long been used to justify them in others. A GMB spokesperson said:

It’s disappointing that BMA management are now resorting to placing a percentage pay value on Christmas days off. Perhaps the ghost of Christmas future is lurking in the corridors of BMA House, the site of Charles Dickens’ former home.

We remain committed to seeking a credible offer to reflect inflation and a resolution to address years of pay erosion, just as resident doctors are rightly doing for their own pay.

The need for union staff to take collective industrial action against their bosses has been a common sight in 2025, though in other cases the issue has been alleged abuse, bullying, misogyny and victimisation by the general secretaries of the Unite and TSSA unions and their teams.

Featured image via the Canary