January 23, 2023: One of the U.K.’s biggest unions on Friday announced ten additional days of strike action more than the coming weeks as a standoff between the administration and ambulance workers intensifies.

Over 2,600 ambulance workers in Wales and the West Midlands, North West, North and East Midlands of England are set to walk out as part of an ongoing conflict more than pay and staffing on Monday.

The newly announced strikes will affect the North West, North East, East Midlands, West Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Additional ballots are currently held at four other ambulance trusts that could join the dispute later next month.

“Rather than act protecting the NHS and negotiate an end to the dispute, the administration has disgracefully chosen to demonize ambulance workers. Ministers mislead the public regarding the life and limb cover and condemning for more than deaths,” Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham stated.

“Our members faithfully give life and limb cover on strike days, and it’s not the unions who are not to gain minimum service levels: it’s this administration’s disastrous handling of the NHS has brought it to breaking point.”

The union said that its models would work at a regional level to ensure that quick life and limb cover would be available during the strikes. At the same time, patients needing saving treatment would still be transported to appointments.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration has introduced contentious anti-strike legislation to “enforce less than service levels” across key public services, which unions have criticized as an attack on worker rights.

The legislation would force a few employees to work during a strike. Government ministers have publicly charged ambulance workers of endangering lives by accepting industrial action, prompting widespread backlash from unions and political opponents.

Unite National Lead Officer Onay Kasab said a resolution was “in the administration’s hands,” and the dispute would finish when the U.K. leadership enters “proper negotiations” more than pay.