At the call of various union centers, more than a million British workers are preparing to strike by December 31 to defend their wage demands.
By Cécile Ducourieux (London, correspondent)
It has been forty years since the United Kingdom had not known such a social movement: more than a million workers are preparing to strike, between December 12 and 31, at the call of their various power plants Unions, risking paralyzing part of the country during the holiday season. The railroad workers, already mobilized since the summer, will disengage at least eight days: dozens of trains from London, but also in the midlands and northern England, will be deleted, fourteen operators of railways will be affected .
Some 115,000 Royal Mail employees (La Poste, privatized in the early 2010s), who have already accumulated twelve days of strike since July, have left for ten other days of work stoppage since December 9. Baggivers will disengage at Heathrow airport in London, as are Eurostar security personnel. From December 22, motorway personnel will in turn go into dance in London and southern England, as well as customs officials, from December 24, in Heathrow and Gatwick, the other London airport.
Even more symbolic, in a country that worsens its hospital system – the National Health Service (NHS) -, public and free but increasingly defaulting, paramedics should stop work on December 21 and more 100,000 nurses of around fifty hospitals voted for December 15 and 20, at the call of their union, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), for the first time since the creation of this Last,… one hundred and six years ago. And that is without counting with teachers or beginner doctors, also “most likely ready” at work stoppages at the beginning of 2023, according to the British Medical Association.
At the heart of this social rumble, point to salary claims, while, in the public service or parapubration, the increases proposed by employers do not exceed 5 %, that inflation reached 11.1 % on a year in October and that average wages have been stagnating for a decade, a consequence of the austerity era engaged in 2010 by the Cameron government.
Right of strike seriously hampered
According to figures from the British Union Confederation (TUC), employees lost an average of 20,000 pounds Sterling (around 23,230 euros) between 2008 and 2021. Faced with energy prices Who have doubled and food prices that jumped 16 % in a year, living decently with these remuneration becomes difficult – especially in London, where rents are prohibitive.
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