World | UK
Strikes cripple public sector services
Britain was hit yesterday by the most wide-ranging wave of work stoppages since the Labour government came to power 11 years ago, with up to 400,000 public sector employees going on strike.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:45 April 25, 2008
London: Britain was hit yesterday by the most wide-ranging wave of work stoppages since the Labour government came to power 11 years ago, with up to 400,000 public sector employees going on strike.
It was another blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown after he was forced by party rebels into a humiliating policy reverse over tax cuts on Wednesday and came a week ahead of local elections that will be his first major test at the ballot box.
Unrest at refinery
Refinery workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland are also set to strike work in a dispute over pensions that could cause major fuel distribution problems.
Business Secretary John Hutton said there was no need for the government to invoke emergency powers and Britain had enough fuel stocks and imports to maintain supplies.
More than 200,000 teachers as well as thousands of college lecturers are staging their first national strike in 20 years, frustrated over pay deals they say do not match the rise in living costs.
More than 8,000 schools remained closed.
The 200,000 members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) were taking part in the one-day action in protest at a three-year pay deal announced in January.
"Teachers do not take the decision to strike easily, or lightly, but their patience has been stretched to the limit," said Christine Blower, the NUT's acting general secretary. "This is not just a one-year issue. After three years of below-inflation pay increases, the prospect for a further three years of the same is the last straw," she said.
Union warning
The pay deal, recommended by the independent School Teachers' Review Body, which included the NUT, would see salaries rise by 2.45 per cent from September 2008, and by 2.3 per cent in September 2009 and 2010.
Union spokesman Alex Kenny said: "Today's strike won't be the end of it."
Brown's popularity has plummeted after a string of crises. He is battling to keep the economy on course and trying to keep a lid on public sector spending.
"It is regrettable for pupils, it is regrettable for parents," he said of the teachers' strike. "This a government that over 10 years has doubled expenditure on education."
The teachers were joined in a coordinated wave of strikes by more than 100,000 workers from 10 government departments, ranging from coastguards to driving test examiners.
"We teach the future leaders, the nurses, the teachers - you can't do without us," said teacher Janet Arthur at a protest rally in London.
"It's a vicious circle and poverty will set in. We want to have families as well."
"We're tired of inflation going up and our salaries not meeting that rise," said Leanne Hahn, a primary school teacher from north London, one of the several thousand who marched through the capital's streets waving placards saying "No to paycuts" and "No extra unpaid hours".
Struggle for survival
"We're struggling to get mortgages and to get onto the housing ladder. We just can't afford to live," she said.
However, Councillor Ivan Ould, chairman of the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers said children and their parents would suffer as a result of the NUT action. "Children so close to their exams will lose out on invaluable study time and parents will lose out as they are forced to take unnecessary holidays to look after them," he said.
A spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents local councils, said: "It is the most wide-ranging strike in a decade."
Waning popularity
The government made concessions on Wednesday to Labour lawmakers threatening a rebellion over tax changes and said it would look at ways of helping those worst affected by the abolition of the lowest income tax band.
The popularity of Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister last June after 10 years as finance minister, has slid as the effects of the global credit crunch dented his reputation for sound economic management.
Local elections on May 1 will be the first polls Labour will face with Brown at the helm.
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