Brexit, inflation and labor shortages: the UK enters the biggest strike in 30 years

An air of nostalgia for uncompromising Thatcherism, the brutal consequences of Brexit and its lack of labor and a very high cost of living, unattainable with current wages and inflation, are the reasons for a train strikewhich begins this Tuesday and will run through Thursday and Saturday in Britain.

30 years ago that the kingdom will not suffer a trade union movement of such scope.

The teachers and doctors will join the railwayif the government does not give in to demands for an increase in wages.

Mick Lynch, Britain’s most militant trade union leader, is already calling for the general strike.

A week of train chaos begins in Britain to which are added to the British flights, canceled due to lack of European manpower in the crews due to Brexit. A drama that extends to bars, hotels and agriculture in the kingdom.

With commuters facing a week of chaos on the railways, teachers have joined the list of those considering voting to strike. They are joined by doctors, nurses, civil servants, local government staff, lawyers, postal workers, BT engineers and traffic wardens.

No one can survive on these salaries the rising cost of living in Britain, in a society where people live outside the cities and must travel to work daily by train or car. Fuels also rose astronomically, as well as train tickets, which have always been the most expensive in the world.

Teachers are ready to initiate strike procedures if they do not receive a significantly improved salary offer for Wednesday. Staff at the NHS, the health service, are also likely to be told their salary award this week.

If your salary does not increase significantly, the nursing union will consult its members about what steps to take On Monday afternoon, criminal law lawyers were scheduled to announce the result of a strike vote, which would stop the courts of the crown

Teachers want salary increases of up to 12 percent. Post the Covid Pandemic, nurses have demanded 5 percent above inflation, which is forecast to reach 11 percent this year in the kingdom.

the train stoppage

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), has promised to continue striking until a settlement is reached in a dispute over loss of jobs and wages.

Network Rail is believed to have offered a 3 per cent raise for a year. But Lynch suggested that he wanted a raise of more than 7 percent. He complained that the work week could be extended from 35 hours to 40 or 44. Lynch promised: “If there is no agreement, we will continue with our campaign.”

When asked if he supported calls to the first general strike since 1926, told the BBC: “I would do a general strike if we could get one.” “I think there will be a lot of unions voting across the country because people can’t take it anymore he explained.

According to Lynch, “We have people who have full-time jobs, who have to receive state benefits and use food banks in order to survive. That is a national disgrace, ”she described, to explain what happens in family homes, since the kingdom began to suffer the consequences of the war in Ukraine and Brexit.

His union is going ahead with strikes at Network Rail and 13 rail operators tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday after negotiations failed.

The biggest strike since 1989

This is the biggest railway strike since 1989. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, more than 40,000 members of the RMT, a union representing many railway workers, will walk out over proposed job and pay losses.

The union’s action will also disrupt services for the rest of the week. It will become in a lousy week for those who have to get to work.

The railway businessmen have other arguments for not negotiating with the strikers. All households are affected by the cost of living crisis. Railroad workers, of course, are feeling the effects of rising inflation.

Union bosses say his salary should rise as a result. However, with more people working from home, demand for rail services is suppressed, leaving an annual funding gap of £2 billion in the industry.

The government has already had to pour £16bn of extra money into the system during the pandemic. The sector is not in sound financial health. These are not ideal circumstances for a drastic increase in wages.

With an average wage package of £44,000, rail workers are better protected from inflation than many public and private sector workers.

opposition to technology

Because the unionse have relentlessly opposed the adoption of technology on the railways, the service is not productive enough.

Network Rail had to fight tooth and nail against the unions even to introduce an app to communicate with its workers. The use of technology in road inspections and repairs is also controversial.

Network Rail points out that, with the benefit of the savings achieved by technology, it would be easier to pay workers more. Some jobs would be lost, but this can be remedied through voluntary redundancies.

There is also a macroeconomic imperative to resist union pressure. Public sector wage agreements can act as benchmarks for the private sector.

If employers trigger an inflationary spiral, with price increases and wage increases competing to catch up, then consumers will be the ultimate losers. Ministers are aware of this risk.

Thanks to declining union membership since the 1980s, union bosses they no longer have the power they once had to paralyze the country.

In any case, most goods move by road and many workers are now set up to work remotely, which will help contain the fallout from strikes. However, they will be harmful.

The most obvious chaos will be around big events, but some of the less spectacular disturbances will be the most severe. It is possible that sixth graders can’t get to the exam room to take the A-level tests. The exams will be lost. medical appointments and hospital visits.

A summer of strikes

The prospect of more industrial stocks casts a long shadow over the summer. At the end of this week, millions of NHS employees will receive their pay offer for the year. It is likely to be significantly below inflation.

Unison, which represents NHS staff, has warned of “potential dispute, growing labor shortages and increased suffering for the sick”. Teachers’ and postal workers’ unions have also warned of strikes, if they do not receive satisfactory wage offers.

A wave of strikes throughout the public sector it would be a severe test of the public’s patience This week, ministers will rush to pass emergency legislation allowing companies to replace striking employees with agency or temporary workers for a limited time.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, sought to turn the political pain of the worst rail strikes since 1989 onto Labour, urging their leader Sir Keir Starmer to “personally condemn” the RMT strikes and take action against MPs who backed strikes publicly.

He said it was time for “workers to stop support these strikes and urge your union paymasters to speak out, not march.”

A Labor spokeswoman said: “The only people who want these strikes to go ahead are Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps, who they haven’t spent a second to talks to avoid them since March.”

Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, said the Conservatives are “pouring oil on the fire” over the rail dispute.

The unions have a six-month mandate for industrial action. Lynch warned that the strikes could last into the fall.

The two main teachers’ unions, each with hundreds of thousands of members, said they might strike if proposed wage increases were much lower than inflation.

Mary Bousted, of the national union that brings them together, said that teachers’ salaries had been reduced by a fifth in real terms since 2010.

The government has resigned itself to the strike. Simon Clarke, chief secretary of the treasury, was clear. “I’m afraid the strikes are likely to go ahead,” he said.

“Clearly we will continue to support the negotiations until there is no more time to discuss. We have an inflation problem in this country. But I think the public needs to know this week that there is going to be a very substantial disruption, and therefore it is sensible to make preparations for that,” she warned.

“It’s not too late to stop it”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview with the Evening Standard that “it was not too late for the unions to call off the strikes”, which he described as an “act of self-injury for railway workers”.

“School-age children are at risk of exams being disrupted. Commuters may have to leave their office once again and families, enjoying a summer’s day in the city, will no doubt be disrupted,” the prime minister said.

“The taxpayer substantially supported the rail industry during the pandemic. Now we are coming out of that, we need the railroad to be a sustainable force in our country. It is not. Those changes must be guaranteed as part of this: a broader negotiation,” he said.

Government indirectly control the thousands of miles of track, through Network Rail, on which privately owned train companies operate. Clarke said that he would not interfere in negotiations between employers and employees.

“We don’t own the railroads ourselves,” Clarke said. Paul Nowak, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, stated that teachers, railway and postal workers were not “going on strike for the fun of it”, but had “real concerns about things like salary.”

“Rail workers have very little choice but to go on strike as the Tory government refuses to sit down for negotiations,” Labor said.

Paris, correspondent

ap