Strikes everywhere.. A bone-breaking battle between workers and the government The British economy suffered huge losses

Not a day passes without a strike in a government interest in Britain, which led to a state of confusion in various aspects of life from the transport movement and in the health and postal sectors during the Christmas period, as the country is witnessing the largest strike wave in its history, and whenever a strike stops, another starts in another sensitive sector. It affects the lives of millions of citizens.

Hundreds of thousands of health workers, ambulance drivers, highway operators, bus and train drivers, railway workers and even border police have chosen to strike on separate days during this week and until the first week of 2023.

They, along with hundreds of thousands of workers in education and government institutions, are calling for an increase in salaries due to the high rate of inflation to record levels and high prices, in return for the intransigence of the British government, which says that any increase in salaries will exacerbate the inflation crisis.

Strikes everywhere

A state of great chaos in British hospitals, as data from the British National Health Authority (NHS) revealed that a quarter of ambulances in Britain had to wait for more than an hour while carrying patients before reaching the emergency department, which is the longest waiting period recorded in British hospitals in history. country.

The main reason is the strike by thousands of ambulance workers and paramedics, which has led to the suspension of emergency call service in some areas.

The situation appears tragic in a number of emergency departments, as 24% of patients who arrive at the emergency wait more than an hour before they are allowed to enter, which prompted the health authorities to announce that the current winter is also the worst in the country's history.

It is expected that the situation will continue as it is at the beginning of the year 2023, as the nurses demand an increase of 7.5% in their salaries, which the government rejects, and all indications confirm that the negotiations between the nurses’ unions and the government have reached a dead end.

Tens of thousands of passengers also received phone messages informing them that their flights are threatened with delay, due to the border police strike, during the last week of 2022, which is the peak week in flights due to the Christmas holidays, and it is expected that 10 thousand flights will be affected due to this strike.

Britain will welcome the new year, with new strikes in the transportation sectors in all its means, whether the subway, trains and buses, in addition to highway workers, in the longest wave of strikes in the transport sector in the country.

Huge losses

A study by the Center for Economic and Commercial Studies in London (Cebr) showed the size of the economic losses incurred by the British economy due to the 8-month series of strikes. Since its launch in June, these strikes have not stopped in various sectors and are expected to continue until January next year. .

According to the British Center, the first three days of the train workers' strike in June cost the British economy more than 91 million pounds sterling, and after the strike extended for 3 months, these losses rose to 289 million pounds sterling, due to absenteeism and the inability of people access to their places of work.

These losses will increase during the period between December and January by more than 219 million pounds sterling, and if the strikes extend to the month of February, the losses are expected to rise to half a billion pounds sterling.

According to the data compiled by the British Center, more than 93,000 working days have been lost due to strikes that have been launched since the middle of this year, and 92% of these days were due to the strike of transport sector workers, especially the strike of railway workers.

The situation worsened in the month of October in particular, when a loss of 417,000 working days was recorded, due to the large number of strikes by bus, train and subway drivers, as this month recorded the highest number of lost working days since November 2011.

The British Center study concludes that the cost of these strikes will reach 1.2 billion pounds sterling, and 60% of these losses will be recorded during the months of December and January, due to the large number of strikes during the Christmas period.

The number of lost working days in December and January will reach 1 million, the highest rate of lost working days over a 33-year period since 1989.