This December, in addition to following the advent calendar, as the countdown to Christmas that traditionally decorates European homes is called, the British need to follow another agenda carefully — that of public service strikes.
After several stoppages between June and August, which affected the operation of transport during the holiday period, a new wave has hit the United Kingdom since the beginning of the month, with no signs of abating in the coming weeks of end-of-year festivities. Every day, a different category promises to cross its arms.
Now, however, the service disruption extends far beyond train stations and airports. This Thursday (15), the British union of nursing professionals, the Royal College of Nursing, organizes a 12-hour strike with the forecast of joining up to 100 thousand workers in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It will be the first in the history of the collegiate, founded in 1916 – the second has already been announced for Tuesday (20).
The category joins the 115,000 employees of the postal service and 40,000 of the railway sector, who scheduled various events throughout the month. In addition to them, border control workers at airports and security agents from the Eurostar, a train line that connects the United Kingdom to continental Europe, also joined. Next week, ambulance operators threaten to stop work.
The forecast of the unions is that, this month, in the sum of each employee stopped, there will be more than 1 million days lost due to strikes, the highest since July 1989. In October, the figure accumulated 417 thousand days – the highest since 2011.
The strikes that hit the public sector are being called as a way of putting pressure on the government for salary adjustments that exceed inflation, measured at 11.1% in October, a record in more than 40 years. The union of nursing workers asks for 5% above inflation.
The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, of the Conservative Party, argues that there are no conditions to give rises above inflation to the public sector, with the justification that this could result in more pressure on the rise of prices. To compensate for the interruption of essential services, the government is considering assigning members of the Armed Forces to, for example, drive ambulances.
This Tuesday (13), after a last attempt at an agreement that could cancel the nursing strike, the union leader called the government’s position belligerent. “I asked several times to discuss the salary and each time we came back to the same point – that there was no extra money on the table and they would not discuss it. They closed the books and walked away,” said Pat Cullen of the Royal College of Nursing. . The category promises to maintain activity in essential units, such as intensive care and oncology.
Opposition leader Keir Starmer called the nursing strike an embarrassment to the government. “All the prime minister has to do to stop this is open the doors and discuss salary with them. Instead of showing leadership, he is playing with people’s health,” he said in parliament on Wednesday.
Susan Milner, professor of European politics and society at the University of Bath, tells Sheet that the moment sees a hardening of positions. “With the government adopting a general refusal, strike movements are likely to increase. They should not disappear overnight.”
Researcher of labor organizations, Milner says that, unlike now, the strikes recorded in recent decades had punctual peaks, limited to a few sectors at a time. “What we have now is a feeling that the public sector is a place of discontent, because salary offers are far below inflation and the average progression of the private sector”, she says. “It’s widespread, which is new.”
The current wave of strikes also differs from the movements of the late 1970s that entered UK history with the “winter of the discontented” —in September 1979, the number of days lost due to strikes surpassed 11 million. With the tightening of legislation promoted by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, it became more difficult for a union to call a strike. “But organizations, like the railroad workers, have adapted and learned how to operate within the system”, explains Milner.
Perhaps this expertise helps to explain why the British are divided when it comes to supporting rail strikes, while placing themselves more clearly on the side of nursing workers, who stop for the first time, and ambulances.
According to a YouGov poll on December 6-7, 33% of Britons blamed the government for the train strike, while 31% targeted trade unions. Regarding health professionals, the majority (46%) think that the Sunak management is to blame for the situation. “From the outside, nurses seem to have the best chance of putting pressure on the government to come to terms,” says Milner.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
