The United Kingdom is experiencing a new wave of massive strikes in transport, post and ports starting this Thursdaycontinuing the largest social movement of its kind in decades in the face of soaring inflation and collapsing purchasing power.
In this period of school holidays, only one train in five was running this Thursday. Tens of thousands of railway employees were called to stop work by the British unions RMT, TSSA and Unite. Network Rail, public manager of the network, urged the British to avoid this type of transport.
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Passengers who, despite everything, tried to catch a train were sympathetic to the strikers, given that inflation exceeded 10% per year in the United Kingdom for the first time in 40 years, devaluing wages.
“The strike is fair, because inflation is now at a record level,” Usam Sarda, a dentist in his 30s, told AFP at Euston station in London.
“All my sympathy is with them,” the strikers, said Greg Elwood, a 26-year-old adviser, questioned at the Leeds station in northern England.
The strike is fair, because inflation is now at a record level
The biggest rail strike movement since 1989, at the end of the Thatcher years, could “go on indefinitely” warns RMT general secretary Mick Lynch on Thursday. Strikes in this sector have already occurred in episodes since June, in the absence of wage agreements.
British employees are underpaid
“British workers are fundamentally underpaid,” adds the trade unionist, for whom the movement “will not cease” and may instead extend “to every sector of the economy.”
In fact, unemployment is multiplying in the country. On Friday, the whole of London’s transport network will be almost at a standstill and will continue to be disrupted throughout the weekend, with another rail strike day expected on Saturday.
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On Sunday, dockworkers at the port of Felixstowe (east of England) will go on an eight-day strike, threatening to stop much of the freight traffic.
Similar actions are planned or have occurred at Amazon warehouses, among criminal lawyers, or among garbage collectors.
These social movements could last beyond the summer and extend to education and health officials, where unions have called offers of 4% pay rises “miserable.”
Everywhere, the slogan is the same: workers demand wage increases corresponding to inflation, which reached 10.1% in twelve months in July and could exceed 13% in October, according to Bank of England forecasts.
Ukraine, covid and Brexit
Prices have skyrocketed mainly due to gas prices, on which the country is highly dependent, and which have increased due to the war in Ukraine, but also due to disruptions in supply chains and the lack of workers, as a result of covid -19 and Brexit.
Purchasing power is being eaten away at record speed by rising prices, which “demonstrates the vital need … to defend the value of wages,” Sharon Graham, secretary general of Unite, said in a statement, one of the main unions in the country.
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Some strikes have been averted at the last minute thanks to remuneration offers deemed satisfactory.
Employees of a fuel supply company at London’s Heathrow International Airport, who threatened to disrupt traffic, eventually called off the strike. So did British Airways ground staff, following a pay rise.
Instead, the railway workers maintain their strike, since the negotiations with a multitude of private operators are at an impasse.
The unions also denounce the government’s decision to modify the law to allow temporary workers to replace the strikers.
The famous London luxury department store Harrods was the “first company to threaten its staff” with resorting to this law, in the midst of a staff vote on a strike proposal, according to Unite.
AFP
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