The UK entered its winter of discontent with a series of ongoing strikes and more to come that put the government of Rishi Sunak within a month of taking office. Not even the auspicious start of England in the soccer world cup has watered down the fight plan of different unions that do not rule out a general strike, the first since 1926.
Tax cuts of 30 billion pounds Announced in the budget more than a week ago, they spurred the protests that include the bulk of the public sector and part of the private sector. A sample button of the extent of the discontent of a country little inclined to strikes and demonstrations, it is the College of Nursing voted in favor of a force measure for the first time in 106 years.
Spend Christmas and winter
The protests come at two key moments: the pre-Christmas season and winter. The modality is staggered strikes. This Thursday and Friday, 70,000 university workers went on strike and they will do it again next Tuesday.
The same is true of the postal sector. Postal workers went on strike on Wednesday 23 and they plan six measures of force until December 2 that will partially or totally affect the postal service. Workers they rejected a 2% wage increase, light years away from 11-12% inflation nationwide.
Another sector that announced strikes that would take place in the week before Christmas is the border service that demands an increase of 8% against the offer of 3%. Panic is palpable among businessmen in the food sector. The measure of force would derail the distribution of drinks, turkeys and festive foods that doubles at this crucial time of the year for the balance sheets of the companies.
The vanguard of the protests is public transport. Between this Saturday when the trains stop until December 17 when the buses will go on strike, all services will be affected. This Friday the subway workers begin their strike in five services in the capital. The bus drivers plan 10 strikes until December 17.
Public employees have joined the wave of protests with a vote in favor of a strike in mid-December. In the health sector, according to the “Daily Telegraph”, the nursing service, paramedics and hospital staff are planning coordinated strikes that “could paralyze a National Health Service that is about to hatch during the Christmas holidays.” In the private sector there have been measures of force in beverage and food companies and even in Amazon.
The wages of fear
Public sector wages have been virtually frozen since the Conservatives were elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In the Nursing service, heroines and heroes of the two years of pandemic, there are 47,000 unfilled vacancies, a hole in a National Health Service (NHS) in crisis: the number doubles when considering the total hospital workforce.
Nurses at the beginning of their career and pay scale have become regular customers of food banks, centers that give free bags of food to the lower-income sectors. “We are not going to continue tolerating this situation. Ministers have to look in the mirror and ask themselves how much longer we are going to have to put up with this,” he said. Pat CullenSecretary General of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which brings together the nursing service.
In response, the government has appealed to an old tool from the 1970s: stigmatize the unions and accuse the labor opposition of being behind the conflict. But times have changed.
With frozen or lagging wages, rising energy prices, and the highest inflation in four decades, the population stopped consuming the tale of vague, red, and politicized unions. “It does not seem the best line of political attack to say that Labor is on the side of the nurses and the NHS,” acknowledged the conservative weekly. The Spectator.
The austerity numbers
Poverty and homelessness have grown steadily in these 12 years of conservative austerity and have multiplied with the pandemic and the war. The growth of food banks, supported by donations, is an example. Today there are some 1,300 food banks, which were used during the summer by more than 145,000 families, an increase of 40% compared to the previous year.
Not only the number has grown: the composition of the users is changing. “A good part of those who use these banks are people who collect unemployment insurance and other social benefits. But more and more we are seeing that among the users there are workers because their salaries do not keep parity with the increase in the cost of living, of electricity and gas and other essential items for survival”, he points out. Gill Fouriemanager of a food bank in the northern city of Blackburn.
Things will not improve with the threat of freezing winter looming. The so-called energy poverty (dedicating more than 10% of income to gas and electricity) exceeded three million and will worsen in the coming months due to the increase in prices: for many people the option will be heating or food.
The economic recession completes a dark picture. The self-sufficient Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that the recession is 1.4% of GDP, the worst in Europe and that in the next two years the drop in living standards will be 7%, an eight-year setback in purchasing power.
The poorest and the middle classes will be the most affected. 40% of Britons, who are paying off property mortgages, are beginning to pay substantial interest rate increases. In some cases, they are around 700 pounds a month (about a thousand dollars).
Sunak’s Budget
On October 25, Rishi Sunak became the third prime minister of the year, replacing Liz “the short” Truss, who lasted 45 days in office, a record in the long British history. Truss’s legacy was a disastrous ultra-neoliberal budget that triggered a run on the pound, sent interest rates quadrupling so far this year and skyrocketed interest payments on debt.
November 17Jeremy Huntfourth finance minister of this 2022, calmed the markets with the announcement of a new budget that undid the mess presented in September by the dynamic duo Truss-Quasi Quarteng (third finance minister and the shortest in history). Hunt’s message was similar to the one he delivered on June 22, 2010, at the start of the long Conservative austerity, then-new minister George Osborne: the priority is to heal public finances so as not to leave an unbearable debt for generations to come.
But Hunt’s adjustment formula presents notorious variations because the conservatives’ room for maneuver has shrunk. Hunt cut public spending by £30bn, but at the same time raised taxes by £25bn. Unlike Osborne, he did not hesitate to take flags from Labor by announcing that A good part of the tax increase will fall on those who earn more than 125,000 pounds a year and the energy companies that will have to pay a special rent of 35% until 2028. For the moment, the budget and the professionalism of the Sunak-Hunt duo calmed the waters in the markets. Surveys show that Labor has a 17 point lead over the Conservatives (45 to 28 in voting intention). But the conservatives have made up ground in terms of public perception of the handling of the economy.
Despite the perennial austerity and turmoil of the past two months, Labor is only one point ahead of Labor in this arena: ordinary British stoics seem to cling to that traditional perception that paints the Conservatives as fiscally responsible. and economic. These historical perceptions are hard to tame, but time is not on the side of conservatives. The elections are in 2024: the tax increase and cuts will be fully felt with the implementation of the budget next year. The discontent is not limited to the opposition, the middle classes and the most neglected sectors. On the conservative right they reject the tax increase, tantamount to taking down the flags of the “Trickle down” (spill) that the party has supported for so long. The winter of discontent will be long. Not even a victory in the World Cup will manage to mitigate the impact.