UK STRIKES HIT HOME

Thousands of civil servants across the UK have been striking over their pay and conditions amid negotiations with their conservative government. The government’s miserly wage offers have led to thousands walking off the job to join mass pickets and wide scale service shutdowns, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Thatcher government.

Inflation has hit a 41-year-high in the UK at 11.1 per cent and millions of workers are finding themselves struggling to be able to survive, now they’re fighting for pay increases that keep up with this newest costof-living crisis.

Ambulance workers stand firm

Ambulance workers are amongst the many in the public sector protesting. They’ve raised concerns about severe and record delays for patients seeking emergency treatment and their stressful working conditions, severe staffing shortages, and burnout.

Ambos and their unions say that these chronic issues in emergency services have been exacerbated by established and entrenched problems within the NHS more broadly, too. They say issues like high levels of understaffing in health have led to long wait times in the emergency department – which has a flow on affect to paramedic services.

As a part of industrial action paramedics were only dispatched to high priority cases, with patients needing non-urgent care referred to GPs or pharmacists. NHS management apparently formulated a plan over the Christmas period to manage emergency worker walkouts by calling in military personnel, volunteers and discharging patients where possible to accommodate for other patients. It sounds a lot more convoluted than just giving workers the pay rise that they deserve, and the public getting the services they need.

New anti-strike bill

Now, more workers are set to take further united industrial action because of the government’s passage of a draconian anti-strike bill in the UK house of commons this year which is now awaiting a second vote in the upper house before it reaches assent. The anti-striking bill comes because of the mass shutdowns and growing worker power against the government, and it aims to curtail many of workers’ rights to protest and unionise.

What now?

It’s a scary and undemocratic precedent if this new bill does become law. Being able to protest conditions at work and unionise is one of the longest standing principles of a democratic and fair society. Repealing these kinds of rights are a worrying trend that everyone in the union movement, and beyond, must resist. But fortunately, workers are standing up to organise against these unionbusting tactics, planning further protests and strikes.

It’s important as unionists that we stand in solidarity with workers all over the world to get these underhanded tactics rebuked.

As for the UK public sector strikes, HACSU members know all too well about the struggle for fairer wages and conditions in the face of stingy employers.

Our health, public sector, and emergency workers across the world have helped their communities through the pandemic and upheld critical services in an unprecedented pandemic – and it’s time for governments across the globe to step up and respect essential workers by paying them what they’re worth. If they can’t, then we have no choice but to fight.