The UK is facing its biggest wave of strikes in 50 years

The English postman calls for higher salaries and job security. (photo: Twitter)

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The movement began in Parliament Square, in the center of the British capital, early last Friday. The temperature was only 1°C. But the heat of the affair seemed to prompt thousands of postmen and clerks who had arrived from all over the country to protest. They unleashed a wave of strikes the likes of which the UK had not seen since the period known as the “Winter Discontent” in the late 1970s.

Almost every day until the end of the month, the most diverse groups – from nurses and ambulance drivers to railway and bus employees, teachers, border police and even coffin-makers – must cross their arms. Forecasts indicate a loss of 560,000 working days, which represents the worst year for the country’s productivity this century.

It is estimated that the damage to the economy amounts to at least 2 billion pounds, or about 13 billion Brazilian reals, which complicates the situation in this country in a state of recession. All this in the most anticipated month of the year, in a society where people start talking about Christmas, a patriotic passion, in September.

“Our intention is neither to create chaos nor to harm Christmas or Christmas. We are talking about an important category, the people who worked non-stop during the pandemic and who are facing an unprecedented deterioration in working conditions,” said Postman Jim, when asked how he thinks of residents who They send out over a billion cards at the end of the year that will react to the movement.

absence of security

Behind the strikes are demands for salary compensation, which has not happened for years, and job security. Postal staff at Royal Mail have made clear their fears of further cuts to 6,000 jobs due in August 2023 and the continued replacement of formal contract professionals by freelancers, or “non-hourly contract workers”.

The same list of complaints goes to university professors. Their wages have suffered a real loss of 25% during the 12 years the Tories have been in power, according to Pippa Catterall, professor of history and politics at the University of Westminster.

“People are very upset. At the beginning of the year a quarter of universities didn’t want to go on strike. Now everyone wants it. It’s the heat of the moment. Nobody can take it anymore. Inflation won’t subside in the short term. Those movements will set in by 2023,” Catterall said. .

Not knowing how to pay energy bills, which have risen by 300% in less than two years, workers watch at a loss as the purchasing power of their wages plummets. Inflation rates have remained at their highest levels in the past forty years.

Now that temperatures are dropping, newspapers and social media are trying to explain how to save energy without getting cold indoors. Many Britons have already warned that they do not intend to turn on the heating, which is worrying the weak national health system, the NHS, which, even before recovering from the stress of nearly three years of pandemic, is facing a wave of influenza and new cases of Covid.

Government

Not knowing how to contain public discontent, the government talks about activating the armed forces to avert chaos with strikes in the NHS, in border control at the country’s main airports, and in road traffic. At the moment, it is also discussing a law that prohibits stops in categories considered essential.

“It doesn’t help to tarnish workers’ image or demoralize them. It’s the old divide-and-rule tactic. It just makes the moves more dangerous, as it has been in the past,” Catterall said.

The assessment is that there is no point in tightening rules on strikes if the government does not take measures capable of improving public services. The NHS has been unable to cope with the consultations and interventions that have been postponed by the pandemic. It lacks arms, especially after Brexit forced thousands of European doctors and nurses to leave the UK. The privatized railway system, one of the most expensive in the world, has increasingly canceled trains and harmed users, even without a strike.

Authorities warned anyone with imperative obligations this week not to use the trains, even though the stoppage will only last three days. Anyone who can avoid flying during the week of Christmas should do so.

A poll conducted by Redfield and Wilton at the request of the Daily Mirror Labor newspaper showed that 54% of the population supported stopping nursing for two days on 15 and 20 December. They ask for a 5% adjustment above inflation.

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