UK Christmas Strikes – Sponsorships cancelled

The nurses’ strike on Tuesday followed last week’s strike when a massive protest movement was implemented. Thousands of non-urgent care visits and treatments have been cancelled.

In addition, an ultimatum is issued by the unions – negotiations before Thursday, otherwise new strikes will be announced in January.

Nor are the nursing unions the only ones who have declared a strike.

Large parts of Britain were paralyzed over the Christmas holidays by the biggest wave of strikes to hit the country in 40 years. Ambulance drivers are on strike. Railway workers’ strike. Teachers, energy workers, transportation employees, and white-collar workers refer to the industrial strike.

But the situation is fixed and the problem is deep rooted. Unions blame the Tory government for the crisis – the government warns of the financial consequences.

Pat Cullen, president of the Royal College of Nursing’s union, called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “step in and do the right thing for every patient and every citizen” and open negotiations on pay and terms.

But the government made clear on Tuesday that the previous offer was firm and non-negotiable. The conservative government signal sets the stage for difficult Christmas and New Year’s weekends.

Want to see a change in attitude

The strike calendar until the next day is almost fully booked, according to The Guardian, and the points effort combined with one-day strikes will disrupt daily life mainly in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ambulance drivers, who are expected to strike on Wednesday, are another example. They put the blame on the Conservative Health Secretary Steve Barclay:

A change of position would be welcome. But Unison union boss Christina McNea told BBC Radio 4 that it was not enough for them to say “let’s talk about this” for us to call off the strike on Wednesday.

The British government is a party to wage negotiations and thus Health Minister Barclay bears a great deal of responsibility.

Understaffing

Barclay and the government are determined. The bid was fixed at 4.75 per cent and a guaranteed minimum increase of SEK 19,000 per year. They think it would be irresponsible for the economy and inflation to raise wages further.

The argument does not disturb the unions that negotiate. Consumer prices in Great Britain increased by 8.4% in the last year.

In addition, inflation is almost total when it comes to the supply of goods, according to Britain’s The Economist. The paper’s accounts examine commodities whose prices have risen more than 2 per cent over the year. The answer is all of them.

Unison, which represents ambulance drivers, says pay is part of the problem. But it’s also about staffing shortages, exposed working conditions, and the general erosion of the care structure that make ambulance crews’ work difficult.

And so the fierce contradictions between government and trade unions touch on something deeply rooted in Great Britain – many remember the intense strikes of the 1970s and the harsh countermeasures of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Echoes of history

The symbol became a long-running battle between coal miners and the then Conservative government of Thatcher during the mid-1980s. That battle came to polarize the country for a long time afterward.

The government’s tough stance and hardline union response were reverberating today.

The Minister of Health is holding Britain hostage. Takes responsibility if patients suffer. Unite’s Sharon Graham tells The Mirror he thinks this is his moment to be like Thatcher.

This allows the British Isles to prepare for the Christmas industrial strike to turn into a long spring of strikes.