The Sunak government threatens to toughen the laws to stop the avalanche of strikes

A Conservative government entrenched in its ideology, and exhausted after 12 years in power and constant infighting, has decided to respond with threats to the avalanche of strikes announced for the end of the year, which anticipate chaos throughout the United Kingdom as the final touch. of an already turbulent 2022.

To the health personnel - doctors and nurses - and ambulances from the National Health Service (NHS), the postal service, civil servants, and public workers have been joined by border control operators from the main airports and ports in the country: Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Newhaven.

The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has met his crisis cabinet on Monday to study the deployment plans of the army,

This Tuesday the railway staff strikes begin: two days that, in reality, will mean disruptions for the whole week.

The nurses' body will begin its first strike in history on Thursday, which will last one day.

They will repeat the protest action on December 20.

The strikes at the border terminals will take place between December 23 and 26 and between December 28 and 31.

If, since the implementation of Brexit, queues and delays were a common occurrence at border barriers, the announced protest of the personnel in charge of controlling the passports of incoming travelers —many of them returning from vacations— anticipates a complicated situation .

The Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, has already asked the British to avoid traveling if it is not essential,

a recommendation in which the echo of the pandemic and previous Christmas holidays resonates.

And the government has already begun training hundreds of members of the armed forces to fill in for the strikers.

The

in the United Kingdom reminds many of its citizens of the summer of 1989, in the last months of Margaret Thatcher's term, when successive simultaneous and overlapping strikes caused the loss of almost two and a half million hours of work. .

In the current situation, the calculations point to a million working hours lost throughout December.

To some salaries that had already remained frozen for years, a cost-of-living crisis has been added that has led many public employees to situations close to poverty.

The Sunak government fears that a high salary increase will contribute to further trigger inflation that is already at 11%, and is also aware that any extra money allocated to public services must come from taxes that have just been raised.

The response to the challenge, with a mix of ideology and bet, is to grit your teeth and hope that public opinion blames the strikers for their weariness rather than Downing Street.

Tougher laws against strikes

Many conservative deputies, however, demand that Sunak toughen the laws that establish the minimum services.

It was a promise from the Government of Boris Johnson, reaffirmed by his successor, Liz Truss, but neither of them had time to push the corresponding legislative process to the end.

"If the union leaders maintain an unreasonable attitude, it is my duty to take the necessary measures to protect the well-being of British citizens," Sunak said last Wednesday in the House of Commons.

"The right to strike is one of the fundamental freedoms of the United Kingdom, and with inflation at 11%, Rishi Sunak only wants to make it much more difficult for the working classes to achieve better wages and better working conditions," said Frances O. 'Grady, the general secretary of the TUC union confederation.

The workers' organizations blame the Government for hindering the negotiations, and for having given the instructions, to the management of the different public companies, not to increase their salary increase offers.

Downing Street relies on the recommendations made by the salary review commissions attached to each public department (NHS, teachers, police, prison officers, etc.), but the unions remind Sunak that what these commissions say is not binding,

“The government does not take all these strikes seriously.

Every morning we wake up to a new headline threatening to get tough on this issue, but not working constructively for the people of this country," said opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer. .

However, Starmer also has internal problems of his own with a matter capable of causing many sparks.

The majority of the population sympathizes with the claims of doctors, nurses, firefighters or teachers, but continues to have a clear rejection of union action.

That is why the Labor leader expressly ordered his deputies not to join the information pickets.

The link between unions and party on the British left is still immense, and the unions are the main source of funding for training.

There have been many deputies who have decided to bypass the ban and publicly support the strikers.

In the UK it is practically impossible to carry out a general strike.

The 1992 Law on Labor Relations and Unions establishes very rigid requirements for calling strikes, together with the express prohibition of union coordination between various sectors.

The rules were further tightened during David Cameron's Conservative tenure (2010-2016).

Any company or public service needs the participation of 50% of its workers, and a support of more than 80% among those who go to vote, for a strike to go ahead.

In other words, if there are 100 workers, 50 must vote and at least 40 support the strike. Under these conditions, the unions have had to develop a synchronized strategy so that most of the strikes coincide on the crucial days of December, and on the key sectors,

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