A 500,000-person strike stirred up Britain
On February 1st local time, British teachers, civil servants, railway workers, bus drivers and security personnel went on strike.
According to the statistics of British trade unions, the total number of participants in the strike is expected to be 500,000. According to AFP, this is the largest strike in the UK in about 10 years.
During this large-scale strike, thousands of British schools were closed, railway transportation services were interrupted, and border officials responsible for the entry and exit inspection of airports and ports stopped working. Firefighters and doctors and nurses from the British National Health System (NHS) have also voted to join the strike.
The strike has had a serious impact on education, commuting, etc., with economic losses as much as 200 million pounds. In addition, it is estimated that about 23,000 public schools will be forced to close, and millions of students will not be able to attend classes.
Mark, secretary-general of the British Civil Service Union, said that the number of strikers indicates that urgent action is needed to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
It is reported that the strikers asked the government to pay higher than inflation in the country to pay soaring food and energy bills. They said that the current wage level is difficult to pay for these high bills.
According to data released by the Office for National Statistics on January 18, the consumer price index (CPI) in the United Kingdom rose 10.5% year-on-year in December 2022, shrinking for two consecutive months, but the increase in food and beverage prices reached the highest since September 1977.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, although British inflation hit a 40-year high last year, the average wages in the British public sector, excluding bonuses, rose by only 2.7% between August and October last year; compared with the country’s private sector wages rose by 6.9% during the same period.
According to the estimates of the British Center for Economics and Business Studies, in the eight months to January 2023, the economic losses caused by the strike were about 1.7 billion pounds (about 2.09 billion US dollars), accounting for about 0.1% of Britain’s estimated GDP.
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Post time: Feb-03-2023