LONDON, August 19 (Portal) – London’s transport network ground to a halt on Friday as train and bus workers held strikes over wages and working conditions, the latest in a summer of labor disputes as double-digit inflation eats away at wages.
All London Underground and S-Bahn lines have been suspended or partially suspended and dozens of bus routes in the west of the city have been disrupted, Transport for London (TfL) said.
Tens of thousands of workers from the wider national rail network left on Thursday and will do so again on Saturday.
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Commuters across the country have already suffered disruption this year from rail strikes organized by unions demanding wages and conditions for their members that better reflect the rising cost of living caused by energy-price-related inflation.
The data showed inflation at 10.1% in July, the highest since February 1982, as rising energy costs resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine hit consumers directly through their household bills and indirectly through rising food prices.
That has led to a standoff between companies who say rising costs and falling demand are limiting their bargaining power, unions who say their workers can’t afford to live, and the government concerned that big wage increases will fuel inflation could.
“We don’t want to get into a vicious circle of the 1970s where wages go up, inflation goes up and so on and so on. You never get out of there,” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC.
The RMT said the underground strike was in response to a lack of assurances about jobs and pensions from TfL. In a letter to Shapps, the union accused him of waging an ideological war against railway workers.
TfL is itself in lengthy negotiations with the government following the expiration of a government emergency funding deal, necessitated in part by a drop in passenger numbers following the pandemic.
Workers in other UK industries are also planning future strikes or heading towards industrial action. These include dockers, lawyers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and garbage collectors, airport workers, and post office workers. Continue reading
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Reporting by William Jame and Sachin Ravikumars; Edited by Alex Richardson and Michael Holden
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