Trade Unions Should Feel Confident For Public Sector Disputes
The Social ReviewDec 17, 2022
Ambulance workers in England and Wales staged a mass walkout Wednesday in a dispute over pay and working conditions. Leaders of the National Health Service have warned that they cannot guarantee ambulance availability for patients during the strike.
The strike, involving three labor unions and over 20K workers, is the latest in a series of labor actions that have taken place in the UK as a mounting cost-of-living crisis, spurred by double-digit inflation, grips the country. On Tuesday, nurses went on strike over pay that has not kept up with inflation, with rail workers and border control workers scheduled to do the same later this week.
Not only have nurses and frontline workers borne the brunt of the pandemic, they now face a government trying to nickel-and-dime them out of a necessary and well-deserved pay increase, all while dealing with record-high inflation and a buckling healthcare system. Public sector wages have stagnated profoundly under conservative governance. The unacceptable exploitation of essential workers needs to stop.
Unions must face the fact that every day they stay on the picket line puts the lives of countless Britons at risk. The government is scrambling to find solutions to the economic crisis sparked by COVID and inflation, as well as the market destabilization induced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The unions are simply not playing fair by ignoring the reality of current economic circumstances — this is a safety issue.