railroad workers, dockers, lawyers … almost every day, the country is faced with a new movement of anger.
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Thursday, August 18, the British trains were on strike and traffic, strongly disrupted. The next day, the London metro was stopped. The next day, the trains were again blocked. Sunday, it was the turn of the Dockers of the port of Felixstowe, in eastern England, to launch an eight -day work stoppage. Monday, August 22, anger also seized lawyers, which voted by a very large majority the strengthening of the strike that they triggered in April. In Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, after almost a week of discourage of the garbage collectors, the garbage is piled up.
Or almost every day, the United Kingdom is faced with a new movement of exasperation of employees. “The summer of dissatisfaction”, as it was nicknamed, started in June and tends to harden. It is now the biggest wave of strikes for thirty years, even if it remains for the moment far from “the winter of dissatisfaction” of 1979, which had immobilized everything.
That being said, in a country that has hardly known social movements since the 1990s, there is no great demonstration or true coordination of actions. In front of the stations, a few dozen demonstrators are sometimes united, politely brandishing a handful of signs. On Monday, in Felixstowe, the largest port of containers in the kingdom, less than a hundred people in pink or red fluorescent vests made an act of presence on dried lawns, near their workplace.
Inflation shock
The lack of habit of strikes-in Felixstowe, it had not happened for thirty years-makes the generalized movement which seems to be seized the country all the more. “In the port, employees are really not activists,” said Robert Morton, representative of the Unite union for the transport sector. But they simply cannot let their wages be ravaged by inflation. “
Each ranging has its specificities, but all come together on one point: the inflation shock, at 10.1 % in July across the Channel (or even 12.3 % depending on the indicators), is violent. Over one year, average remuneration, including bonuses, had increased by 5.1 % in the second quarter, representing a decline in purchasing power of 3 %. You have to go back to the 2008 financial crisis to find such a pronounced fall. It is probably only the beginning: the Bank of England provides that inflation will reach 13 % in the coming months. As for Citi analysts, an American bank, they even count on 18 % in January 2023.
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