Thursday, April 27, 2006

Aberdeen Nurses Strike 1924

Aberdeen Nurses' Strike
November 1924


Thie dismissal by the Parish Council of the nurse-superintendent at Oldmill Hospital, Aberdeen, led to a sympathetic strike by 23 of tlie 30 nurses employed there. The nurses
who refused to undertake duty were at once served with a notice ordering them to leave the hospital by mid-day on the following dny (20th November 1924).

They refused to leave the premises until they had been repaid the sum which had been contributed by them for superannuation purposes. The next move by the Parish Council Committee was an application to Court for power to evict the nurses from their quarters at Oldmill.

On Saturday the nurse-superintendent and 23 of the nurses left Oldmill. An effort was made by the hospital sub-committee to induce some of the nurses to resume work, but when they learned that nine of their number, regarded as ringleaders in the strike, would have to go they refused tlie sub-committee's offer. A Board of Health official visited the hospital, but it is understood that he informed the nurses that the Board would not interfere with the jurisdiction of the local authority in dealing with the trouble at the hospital.

NAWU Journal December 1924