Britain’s biggest strike action in decades continues. The United Kingdom has been experiencing since Thursday August 18 a new episode of massive walkouts in many sectors, from transport to the post office via the ports, to demand wage increases in the face of inflation at its highest for 30 years.
Only one in five trains was circulating in the country on Thursday August 18, with tens of thousands of rail workers called to stop work by several unions. The London Underground was almost paralyzed on Friday, with only “two lines” offering “reduced circulation”according to a spokeswoman for public transport operator TfL, whose metros usually carry up to five million passengers.
A new day train strike is scheduled for Saturday and thehe movement of railway workers could “continue indefinitely”, warned the general secretary of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, in the absence of a wage agreement since the start of the walkouts in June. The movement has already spread beyond the rail sector: dockworkers at the country’s largest freight port, Felixstowe, begin an eight-day strike from Sunday August 21, threatening to shut down a large part of the country’s freight traffic. Postal workers, employees of the telecom operator BT, Amazon handlers, but also criminal lawyers or garbage collectors have also walked out or plan to do so.
Everywhere, the watchword is the same: employees are demanding increases in their pay in line with inflation, which reached 10.1% in July over one year and could exceed 13% in October, according to the Agency. national statistical office (in English). Prices are driven in particular by gas prices, which are soaring with the war in Ukraine and on which the country is very dependent, but also by disruptions in supply chains and shortages of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.
In the railway sector, negotiations with the multitude of private operators are deadlocked, according to the unions. The latter rejected an 8% wage increase offer by Network Rail, which they accuse of being conditional on massive layoffs. They are also critical of the decision by Transport Minister Grant Shapps, who refused to get directly involved in the talks, to change the law to allow strikers to be replaced by temporary workers.
The minister, for his part, criticizes the trade unions for refusing reforms to modernize the railways, and assured that he could pass them by force. Liz Truss, the favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, said on Twitter : “As Prime Minister, I will not let our country be held to ransom by militant trade unionists”. London’s Labor Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he was on his side “worried that the government is deliberately pushing [les syndicats] on strike in London”.