In a United Kingdom which is bent under inflation at more than 10%, many sectors, employees of the railways, logistics, ambulance workers, border police officers, airports, have decided to strike at the end of this period. year, and for many also at the beginning of January.
This Wednesday, December 2, it's the turn of thousands of paramedics to join the movement to demand wage increases.
A strike that greatly worries about the repercussions it could have in hospitals.
About 750 soldiers were mobilized to replace striking paramedics.
“Many leaders of the NHS (the public health system) tell us that they cannot guarantee patient safety tomorrow,” alerted Matthew Taylor, the director of the NHS Confederation which represents hospitals in England.
“Clearly we have entered dangerous territory,” he wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Health Secretary Will Quince called on the BBC on Thursday for Britons to avoid "risky activities", before detailing: a jog on an icy road, a contact sport, or even a "pointless car ride ".
An NHS official called for taking "reasonable steps", including "drinking responsibly".
Matthew Taylor urged the Prime Minister to quickly put an end to the conflict between the government and the unions, asking him to agree to "negotiate" on wages.
But the government is sticking to its guns.
Inflation over 10%
"I recognize that it is difficult. It is difficult for everyone, because inflation is where it is," Rishi Sunak told the heads of parliamentary committees in Westminster on Tuesday afternoon.
"The best way...to help everyone in the country is for us to pull ourselves together and bring inflation down as quickly as possible," he said.
Health Minister Steve Barclay met with the unions on Tuesday, but without advancing on a solution.
"It is disappointing that some unions are continuing their strike action," he tweeted after the meeting.
The demands of the unions are, according to him, "unaffordable".
Onay Kasab, an official of the Unite union, deemed the meeting "totally useless" because of the minister's "refusal" to discuss salaries.
"How does he expect to get things moving and resolve the conflict without discussing the key issue?" he asked.
On Tuesday, the nurses were again mobilized, after a first walkout last Thursday.
They want a substantial increase, after years of belt-tightening in a chronically underfunded public health care system.
The nurses, on strike for the first time in their union's existence more than a hundred years, have become a symbol of the crisis in the cost of living.
On Tuesday evening, their union gave the government two days to find an agreement on wages.
Otherwise, there will be new strikes after Christmas.
"We have two days left to get together and start turning things around by Christmas. By Friday we will announce dates and hospitals for a strike next month," said Pat Cullen, the Royal's general secretary. College of Nursing.
About 10,000 nurses went on strike Tuesday.
"Salary and working conditions"
"It's not just the salary, it's the working conditions", "patient care", told AFP Emily, a nurse in Liverpool (north), who underlines the large number of nurses who leave the profession.
For thirty years in the profession, her colleague Pauline argues that previously, in order to be able to "have fun" with a nurse's salary, "we worked on public holidays and overtime".
Now, it is simply to "make ends meet" that it must be done.
If the British criticize some of these movements which sometimes upset their plans for Christmas, nurses enjoy strong support in the population.
Because they were on the front line during the Covid-19 pandemic and are undergoing a crisis that has affected the highly respected public and free health system for years.
According to a YouGov poll published on Tuesday, two-thirds of Britons support nurses' strikes, 63% that of paramedics.
They are 43% to support those of the rail.
With AFP
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