With annual inflation running at nearly 10.5% and food and energy prices continuing to soar, the UK faced
its biggest strike in 11 years on
Wednesday .
Schools closed, trains paralyzed and staff absent from multiple ministries are the most visible face of a massive demonstration calling for better wages
The Trades Union Congress, a federation of unions, estimates that up to
half a million workers
, including teachers, university staff, municipal employees, border agents, and train and bus drivers, will
leave their jobs during the day across the country
.
It is estimated that some 20,000 schools in England and Wales will be affected by
the first of seven days of strikes
called for February and March by primary and secondary teachers.
Suspensions of train services and long delays at airports are also expected.
Civil servants from multiple ministries on strike in central London for better pay.
Photo: EFE
More mobilizations are expected in the coming days and weeks
, including those of nurses and ambulance personnel.
Britons are coming off months of disruptions to their daily lives due to
the bitter dispute over wages and working conditions
between unions and the government.
But the strikes this Wednesday mark
an escalation
of disruptive actions in multiple key industries.
The last time there were massive strikes of this magnitude in the country
was in 2011
, when more than a million public sector workers staged a one-day strike over a dispute over pensions.
A separate piece of information was released this Tuesday that must sound particularly painful for the British divorced from Europe after Brexit:
year-on-year inflation in the European Union fell to 8.5%
, in its third consecutive fall after a year and a half of continuous increases. , a decline supported by the slowdown in energy prices.
The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is in the eye of the storm due to the financial situation and the strike in protest.
Photo: EFE
According to the European statistical office Eurostat, this performance of 8.5% in January was verified after having exhibited
9.2% in December and 10% in November of last year
, when the downward trend began timidly.
a day of chaos
"I'm a teacher in London and
I'm having a really hard time paying my rent
," Ciara Osullivan, 38, explained outside her school.
"I have small children and I would like to give them something more than the basics," she lamented, assuring that currently "being a teacher is very stressful" and involves ten-hour days a day.
The teachers' strike coincides with one of multiple stoppages approved by train drivers from a dozen railway companies and
staff from 150 universities
.
Strikes at Kings College London.
Photo: EFE
Also with the action of some 100,000 workers from ministries, ports, airports and even driving license examination centers.
In total,
up to 500,000 people on strike
.
There is no money in the state coffers
The Minister of Education, Gillian Keegan, was "disappointed" and "very concerned" by the strike and considered that granting the wage increases claimed
would be "inconsistent" when the state coffers
are under heavy pressure and indebtedness.
The stoppages promised a day of chaos for many, but the situation at normally busy train stations like King's Cross in London was calm,
thanks in large part to the spread of teleworking
since the pandemic.
In this way
, the paralysis of the activity
experienced in the last massive strike of civil servants in the United Kingdom, in November 2011, was avoided.
Kate Lewis, a 50-year-old NGO worker, considered herself "lucky" to have a train home to Newark, northern England, and said she "understands" the strikers.
"We are all in the same boat.
We are all affected by inflation
."
Strike teachers in England.
Photo: EFE
Although each sector has its demands, all are united in demanding wage increases in the face of inflation that has been above 10% for months (10.5% in December) and leaves many families with no other option than food banks.
This deep crisis led nurses in December to stage their first national strike in their union's more than 100-year history.
After an unsuccessful negotiation with the conservative government of Rishi Sunak, they called two more days of strike in January and another two on February 7 and 6.
This last day will coincide with an action in England and Wales by ambulance crews in what may be
the biggest strike in Britain's battered public health service
, beset by years of austerity, since its inception in 1948.
Popular support for the strike
Despite the chaos caused by the incessant strikes,
59% of Britons support the nurses' strike
and 43% support the teachers, according to a Public First poll published by Politico.
Several student parent organizations said in a statement on Wednesday that they "support" the movement, pointing to "the consequences of years of underfunding" in schools.
The UK is facing its biggest strike in 11 years.
Photo: EFE
For its part, the executive defends the need to impose minimum services in key sectors and presented a bill for this purpose whose approval is advancing smoothly in Parliament.
"The government's position is untenable. It cannot ignore an unprecedented strike movement that continues to grow," the general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, Mark Serwotka, told Sky News, calling for "a more realistic attitude."
Wednesday's protest comes at a bad time for Sunak, on the eve of his 100 days in power marked by the crisis and coinciding with the third anniversary of a Brexit that only 20% of Britons consider to be on the right track, against which a 56% (up from 48% in the 2016 referendum), according to a December YouGov poll.
As the icing on the cake, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on Tuesday predicted that
the UK will be the only G7 country whose economy shrinks
by 2023.
Source: AFP and AP
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