Britain Goes on Strike.

I know, better late then never.

Today (30/11/11) over 2 million British public sector workers held a one day strike. Although some professions had industry specific grievances such as health care workers concerned about NHS privatisation the main purpose of the strike was to protest against government reforms to pensions. Specifically three particular reforms;

1. Changing the measure by which pension payments are adjusted for inflation from the higher Retail Price Index (RPI) to the lower Consumer Price Index (CPI) while prices will continue to be adjusted according to RPI.

2. An eight year increase in the minimum age at which pensions can be claimed from 60 to 68.

3. An increase in pension contributions that will be used to fund other elements of government spending rather then pension payments. Although the government flatly refuses to use the words the correct term for this is a second income tax.

The one day strike had a significant impact across the country with all public transport stopped in Northern Ireland and hospitals only being able to deal with emergency cases. The area where the disruption was most noticeable though was in the education system with 70% of schools closed nationally with the figure rising close to 100% in Scotland. It was this area of the strikes where the government had focused most of it's anti-union propaganda claiming that by striking the teachers were forcing hard working families to lose a days pay just before Christmas due to a lack of childcare. I'm not sure that was the case though because a percentage of the parents would have been public sector workers and therefore would have been on strike anyway and a percentage of the parents would have been non-workers. So it shouldn't have been too difficult for communities to organise their own childcare solutions like in that Big Society the government's always talking about. In the old days the unions would have organised it themselves. The other major claim by the government was that the strikes would seriously damage the economy. That's just nonsense because although essential public services are rarely profitable which is why private companies leave them to the government to provide.

In London in the late afternoon unconnected with the strikes themselves protesters from the group UKuncut occupied the headquarters of the Xstrata mining company in Haymarket. The protest was against high levels of corporate pay but caused so little disruption it was barely worth mentioning.

One thing the strikes didn't deliver was the promised massive disruption to British airports as border and immigration staff walked out. This is because there was never going to be massive disruption. Along with Kelly Rowland's current single "Down for Whatever" and Britain citing the Vienna conventions during their diplomatic row with Iran the talk of massive disruption to immigration was a enquiry to South Africa about general visa status at the COP17/CMP7. The answer of course is; "constantly under review." In light of my comments on Monday (28/11/11) do I really need to comment on the diplomatic row between Britain and Iran further because it's pretty obvious that Britain is over reacting to see who will follow suit. As for the previously unheard of militant group that fired rockets into Israel for Lebanon on Tuesday (29/11/11) the previously unheard of militant groups that are currently causing trouble in Syria are crossing into the country from Lebanon.


Edited at around 22:45 on 30/11/11;

Actually 70% of schools in England were closed today bringing the national average up to around 80%. In London the ambulance service has been unable to deal with even emergency calls where there is an imminent threat to life and have had to rely on the police for support. So if that's a damp squib of a strike as the Prime Minister has claimed I would hate to see a widely supported strike.