social anger
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Railroad workers, longshoremen, garbage collectors, postal workers… For decades, as inflation topped 10 percent, the country faced strikes on an unprecedented scale.
For the fifth time since June, the UK has been paralyzed. More than 50,000 railroad workers across the country once again joined the picket line this Thursday morning to demand higher wages and better working conditions. A historic movement that the country hasn’t seen for thirty years and that will continue until “we have an agreement,” assures the now popular Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) boss Mick Lynch in the British Press .
The RMT, which represents fourteen rail operators and is backed by TSSA (Transport Salaried Staffs Association) and Unite, is also calling for the abandonment of a rail modernization plan that will see 2,500 job cuts. Negotiations have been going on for over a year. “Our members are entering their third, if not fourth, year of pay freezes. Meanwhile, food and fuel prices are skyrocketing, and the rising cost of living is driving working people into poverty. Too much is too much, it can’t last any longer,” denounced, surpassed, this Thursday on Sky News the Secretary General of the TSSA, Manuel Cortes.
In July, the UK inflation rate surpassed a forty-year record of 10%. And according to the Bank of England’s latest forecasts, the price increase could reach 13% in October. The situation has left many public sector workers, such as…