Britain’s strikes affect NHS, postal service, rail and other essential services – NPR

LONDON — Across the River Thames from Big Ben last Thursday morning, a couple hundred nurses picketed outside St. Thomas Hospital. One waved a sign that read: “Can anyone find my friends? They all quit.”

“Currently taking care of my inadequate salary,” read another.

As the cars passed by, the drivers honked their horns in support.

“I think nurses should be given a raise to match inflation because the cost of living [has] shot up so high,” said nurse Rosie Woods, referring to the UK inflation rate, which is close to 11%, its highest level in four decades. “You literally have nurses visiting food banks.”

Woods and tens of thousands of other nurses staged a one-day strike on Thursday, the biggest nursing strike in the history of the National Health Service of Great Britain.

And they’re not the only ones out there. They are joined this month by employees from other essential services, including railway workers, postmen and airport immigration officers. It is the biggest series of UK employment actions in more than a decade and presents a major challenge for the new government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Several factors are driving the strikes, but the immediate cause is inflation resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and post-pandemic supply chain problems. But parts of the utility sector have been vulnerable for some time. The National Health Service, which provides free care, has been underfunded and hemorrhaging workers for years.

As a nurse, Woods focuses on identifying children who may be victims of domestic violence. She says that due to low wages and high turnover among her fellow NHS workers, hundreds of children are left without work.

“We typically work overtime with caseloads that are unsafe and too big to handle,” she says. “It’s just an accident waiting to happen.”

The nurses are demanding a 19% pay increase, but Woods thinks they’ll settle for less. Either way, the government says it simply can’t afford it. officials say the british economy is already in recession. Strong public spending during the pandemic helped set off a $67 billion hole in the country’s budget.

Defending his Conservative party’s record, Sunak says the government is now pouring billions of dollars into health care.

“We are already recruiting thousands more doctors and nurses,” he told Britain’s House of Commons last week. “Last year, when everyone else in the public sector had their public sector wages frozen, nurses received a 3% pay increase.”

Not surprisingly, some of the public service workers whose wages were frozen are among those also on strike.

On Friday and Saturday, more than 100,000 postal workers walked out. his strike it will resume on December 23 and 24.

On strike days, railway workers reduced train operations across the country by 80%. By early Friday afternoon, the gates to London’s Waterloo station and its 24 train platforms were closed. More rail worker strikes are scheduled to start on Christmas Eve.

Matthew Lee, a train guard, picketed London’s King’s Cross station last week, which was almost empty. He said that one of his co-workers is now skipping dinner, because he can’t afford it anymore.

“All she wants to do is have the money to feed her children,” Lee said.

Susan Milner, a professor of European politics at the University of Bath who researches industrial relations, says one reason so many public service workers are on strike now is because of the global financial crisis that took place more than a decade ago. . The British government made massive spending cuts and workers never regained their purchasing power.

“So, generally speaking, we are poorer in income than, say, before 2008,” says Milner.

The government also resists labor demands for political and ideological reasons, she believes, and doesn’t want to be seen to be caving in.

“In the Conservative leadership race over the summer, there was certainly a lot of rhetoric about taking a hard line on unions and strike action,” he says.

Some Brits welcome that hard line, especially as the strikes will take place over the Christmas season.

Scott Arthur, who works at a hotel in Newcastle, is not sympathetic to the railway workers. He calls his strike “a bunch of crap”.

Lee thinks the British unions could use a dose of Iron lady – the nickname given to a former Conservative Prime Minister who is credited with smashing unions in the 1980s.

“Margaret Thatcher solved them all,” says Arthur, “and it’s a shame she’s gone.”

NPR London producer Morgan Ayre contributed to this story.