Thousands of teachers, civil servants, railway workers and other workers took to the streets in London today to demand better wages and face a cost-of-living crisis in one of the UK’s biggest days of strike action in recent years.
The demonstration took place on Wednesday afternoon and ended with the presentation of a petition against the law imposing minimum services in some sectors at British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official residence in Downing Street.
The document was presented by Paul Novak, general secretary of the British Inter-Union Federation Trades Union Congress (DUC), along with representatives from firefighters’ unions and the ambulance service.
“We will take all steps to protect the right to strike. We are looking very carefully at how we will do this in order to take legal action if this legislation is passed,” TUC deputy general secretary Kate Bell said. To reporters.
Unions representing nearly half a million people, including 100,000 civil servants, called the strike today, which affected more than 23,000 schools and paralyzed most trains and many buses.
About 85% of the 23,000 affected schools have been closed in whole or in part, according to the National Teachers Association.
However, the Ministry of Education indicated that only about 52% of the 16,400 public institutions that provided information were partially closed or closed.
“Teachers’ pay has been cut in real terms since 2010, in the public sector and across all sectors. Teachers’ pay has been cut by 20%,” protesting teacher Martin Rush said. British capital, to Spanish company EFE.
Although some schools offer teachers a 5% raise, Alice, the wife of Martin Rush, a teacher, told EFE that the funding “must come from the school budget” and therefore “money taken from the children who are ‘increasing’ costs.”
Youths also participated in the demonstration in support of the teachers’ strike.
Several strikes, including by nurses and ambulance workers, are planned for the coming days and weeks after months of disruption to British daily life due to disputes between unions and the British government over pay and working conditions.
Unions are demanding an increase later this year above the current rate of inflation of 10.5% to compensate for the loss of purchases caused mainly by rising energy and food prices.
The government has argued that the amount is unaffordable as it risks stoking inflation as it wants to negotiate an increase for the fiscal year starting in April.
Since last summer, the UK has seen strikes and protests in many sectors that have been compared to the great labor conflicts of the 1970s, dubbed the “Winter of Discontent”.
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