More than 500,000 workers across the United Kingdom went on strike on Wednesday to demand pay rises and better working conditions in what is the largest protest of its kind recorded in the country in the last decade.
The strike has been called by seven British unions in sectors such as teaching and transport, among others. The situation has led thousands of schools to close their doors throughout the day, according to information from the BBC television channel.
Civil servants, bus drivers and train drivers, as well as the staff of universities and other educational centers, have also stopped working to join the strike, which is taking place in the face of the strong economic crisis in the country.
The unions have organized picket lines in front of train stations and schools, as well as government headquarters in various parts of the country. More than 100,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, the sixth largest union in the United Kingdom, walked out of their jobs on Wednesday, including members of the Border Guard and airport workers.
The unions have expressed their rejection of government regulations to establish a new law on minimum services during strikes. For the moment, the workers have managed to collect some 200,000 signatures to block this measure.
The general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Paul Nowak, said he hopes that the protests and strikes will «send a strong message to the government about the anger felt by more and more workers.
For his part, the country’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, limited himself to expressing that the children «deserve to be in school» and stressed that the teachers, precisely, «have received the biggest salary increase in 30 years». In addition, he explained, a nine percent increase has been introduced for new teachers.
The British premier pointed out that «the education of our children is precious and they deserve to be in school, they deserve to be taught,» as reported by the aforementioned channel. «In fact, the opposition would do well to say that these strikes are wrong and that we should let the children return to class,» he denounced.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
