Teachers, civil servants, train and bus drivers, and university employees, among other workers in the United Kingdom They advance this Wednesday a great strike, described as the largest day of protests in eleven years.
About half a million people were summoned to demand wage increases in the face of skyrocketing inflation, which has ignited a labor dispute that began last summer with massive strikes in the rail sector and has spread to multiple sectors in recent months.
What is behind these massive protests in the UK? We tell you.
The reasons for the protests
Although each sector has its claims, all unite in the demand for salary increases in the face of inflation that has been above 10% for months (10.5% in December) and that leaves many families with no choice but to turn to food banks.
Although the inflation figure slowed down and went from 11.1 percent in October to 10.5 percent in December 2022, these are historically high levels, according to figures released by the National Statistics Office (ONE).
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life here in the UK,” said Wester-Okiya, who arrived 40 years ago from Malaysia.
The situation is so critical that food hubs no longer pack food to send families to other countries in crisis, rather, they must get ready to lend a hand to families that can no longer cover the basic basket.
“I try to hide my difficulties from them…but my daughter said the other day at school ‘I’m worried because mom is not having dinner with us and there isn’t enough food for everyone,'” a mother told AFP.
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I’m worried because mom isn’t having dinner with us and there isn’t enough food for everyone.
“It’s a lot of stress, I have four kids to look after and worry about where I’m going to get the next meal,” she added.
And it is that Millions of Brits can no longer afford adequate food and heating. Rishi Sunak’s conservative government is financing a portion of electricity and gas bills this winter, but both households and businesses are still paying much more than they were a year ago, before the invasion of Ukraine sent prices skyrocketing world.
The future situation shows no signs of improvement. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report predicted on Tuesday that the UK will be the only G7 country whose economy will contract in 2023.
According to the IMF, the United Kingdom will have a decrease of -0.6% in 2023, with a downward revision of nine tenths compared to October, a reflection of tighter fiscal and monetary policies and financial conditions and still high retail energy prices, which are weighing on the domestic economy.
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The case of nurses and teachers
In the particular case of nurses, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union denounces that their salaries fell 20 percent in real terms since 2010 due to several years of increases below inflation.
British public health officials explained in September that some of them were skipping meals to feed their children and that one in four hospitals in England set up food banks to feed their staff amid the crisis.
“We go to work every day and do our best but it’s not enough as our workload continues to increase and our resources aren’t up to scratch,” Orla Dooley, a 29-year-old ER nurse, told the AFP.
Our workload continues to increase and our resources are not up to scratch
The RCN also denounced that there are 47,000 vacant nursing jobs in England, partly due to “poor pay”. This adds pressure and stress to a staff overwhelmed by long waiting lists at the British National Health Service (NHS), in crisis for years due to insufficient funding.
In addition, many European nurses, led by the Spanish, left the UK in the wake of Brexit, which ended the system that allowed them to count their British experience in their countries.
It is also the case of teachers. This Wednesday, 20,000 schools in England and Wales were affected by the strike of primary and secondary teachers.
“I’m a teacher in London and I’m having a really hard time paying my rent… I have young children and I’d like to give them more than just the basics,” Ciara Osullivan, 38, told AFP.
This teacher also stated that currently “being a teacher is very stressful” and involves ten-hour days a day.
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🔴🇬🇧 This is how the United Kingdom lives its biggest day of strikes in eleven years.
They ask for a demand for better wages in the face of the 10.5% inflation facing the country. https://t.co/Eo8HnNxr42📽️: Maria Victoria Cristancho – Weather – London pic.twitter.com/gPb3T4aGLK
— THE TIME (@THETIME) February 1, 2023
Just like teachers and nurses, train drivers from a dozen railway companies, staff from 150 universities, some 100,000 officials from ministries, ports, airports and even staff from driving license examination centers joined the protests in a moment of crisis in the country.
In rail transport, for example, the RMT union rejected a proposal for an 8% increase in two years, considering it insufficient given the rise in prices. This sector also requires guarantees on working conditions.
And despite the chaos due to the incessant strikes that have been taking place in the country since November, 59 percent of Britons support the nurses’ strike and 43 percent back the teachers, according to a Public First poll published by Politico.
Government responses
This Wednesday’s protest comes at a bad time for Sunak, on the eve of his 100 days in power marked by the crisis and coinciding with the third anniversary of a Brexit that only 20% of Britons consider to be on the right track, against which they would now vote 56% (up from 48% in the 2016 referendum), according to a December YouGov poll.
The executive defends the need to impose minimum services in key sectors and presented a bill for this purpose whose approval is advancing smoothly in Parliament.
The project, says the government, aims to guarantee the “security” of services for citizens in the face of strikes such as those called for this Wednesday.
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“Opposition members who oppose minimum security levels have to explain to their voters that if they suffer a heart attack, stroke or life-threatening illness on a day of strike, no standards will have been set. minimum,” said the Minister of Health, according to Efe.
The unions also ensure that they do not they have received enough proposals and responses from the government. “There hasn’t been the slightest proposal in the last five weeks,” Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham replied.
“The government’s position is untenable. It cannot ignore an unprecedented strike movement that continues to grow,” the general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, Mark Serwotka, told Sky News, calling for “a more realistic attitude.”
For this reason, the union organizations ask that the British Prime Minister, the Conservative Rishi Sunak, takes the reins of the negotiations, considering that the minister of health -in the case of nurses- and other minor officials do not have “the authority” to reach an agreement that allows wages to be increased and working conditions to be improved.
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Protest movements in Europe
But the protests in the United Kingdom are not the only ones. France also lived this Tuesday its biggest protest against a social reform in recent decades due to the call of the unions, which have already called new demonstrations for next week to force the government to abandon its plan to delay the retirement age.
The two measures that crystallize discontent are the progressive delay until 2030 of the retirement age from 62 to 64 years and the advancement to 2027 of the requirement to contribute 43 years -and not 42 as now- to collect a full pension.
“I don’t want to work any longer, I have a hard job and I’ll be devastated at 62. It’s neither physically nor morally viable,” Sylvie Dieppois, a kitchen helper who demonstrated in Rouen (northwest), told AFP.
The mobilization was greater than that of January 19 and that the previous record registered in 2010, when the then government of the conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy ended the retirement age at 60 years.
The authorities indicated that 1.2 million people took to the streets on Tuesday, a figure that the CGT union raised to 2.8 million. According to the newspaper Le Monde, it is in any case “a record against a social reform since 1995”.
Paris, where 30 people were arrested for clashes with security forces, registered the largest demonstration with 87,000 people (500,000 according to the CGT), but participation also rose in most cities and towns: 40,000 in Marseille, 28,000 in Nantes , 23,000 in Rennes, etc.
ANGIE RUIZ
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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