We went into the festive break with NHS workers, teachers and rail staff at the end of their tether. All the UK government would say was that they won’t talk about pay. Pay was not that high on the workers agenda. They wanted to talk about working conditions, understaffing and work practice changes that would endanger staff and service users. Nothing given.
We come back from the festive break to the UK government putting legislation forward that was intended to make striking more difficult and resulting in staff being sacked. There was no need for this to happen. The unions and the local authorities already ensure enough basic cover is available while strike action is on. Indeed it has been known in the past for strikers to return to work if a big emergency occurs.
Over the festive period I helped man the local hub where people can go for information, heat, hot drink and chat. We were chatting one day about the contingency plans local groups were being asked to put into place should we have power outages. Someone asked if we thought it would happen and I commented that we seem to be living through lots of what we did in the 70s so it is possible.
This legislation to prevent striking takes us further back in history. To Germany, to when Hitler’s regime was building. The Tories are hell bent on removing all our human rights while protecting their own millionaires.
Keep an eye on what they are up to this year. We have to fight back sometime. By we, I mean the people of the UK.