LONDON: The largest coordinated strike action in Britain in a generation saw up to 500,000 teachers, civil servants, train drivers, and university lecturers walk out on Wednesday over pay and conditions, resulting in significant disruption.
Schools were closed, most rail services were suspended, and the military was put on alert to assist with border checks due to the widespread walkouts across the nation. A total of 500,000 people are expected to participate in the strike on Wednesday, the largest number in at least ten years, with the majority of participants being the estimated 300,000 teachers.
"There has been over the last 12 years a really catastrophic long-term decline in their pay," she said outside a school in south London.
According to Mary Bousted, general secretary of the National Education Union, teachers in her union felt forced to strike because of declining pay, which caused a large number of them to leave the profession, making it more difficult for those who remained.
None of the people standing behind me wanted to strike today, but they reluctantly agreed that something needed to change.
Britain has experienced a wave of strikes in recent months affecting a variety of industries, including health and transportation workers, Amazon warehouse employees, and Royal Mail postal staff. Inflation is currently running at more than 10%, the highest level in four decades.
On Wednesday, Gillian Keegan, the minister of education, maintained the government's stance. With public sector employees, it has adopted a tough stance, warning them that caving into demands for significant wage increases will only increase inflation.
"What we cannot do is give a portion of the workforce pay increases that would drive inflation higher for everyone else. That is not a financially prudent course of action, "She spoke to the BBC.
The cost of the strikes in the eight months leading up to January was estimated by consultancy firm the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) to be approximately 1.7 billion pounds ($2.09 billion), or approximately 0.1% of expected GDP. As a result, the economy has not yet suffered significantly as a result of labour unrest.
It estimated that the teachers' strikes were having an average daily impact of about 20 million pounds. However, the strikes might be affecting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's administration politically. Polls show that His Conservative Party is about 25 percentage points behind the opposition Labour Party, and surveys show that the public believes the government handled the strikes poorly.
Tens of thousands of university professors and rail workers, as well as 100,000 civil servants from more than 120 government departments, are also on strike on Wednesday. Rallies opposing a new law to limit strikes in some sectors are also scheduled for later in the day.
While firefighters this week also supported a nationwide strike, nurses, ambulance staff, paramedics, emergency call handlers, and other healthcare workers are planning to stage more walkouts next week. People on strike are asking for pay increases above inflation to cover skyrocketing food and energy costs, which they claim have made them stressed, feel underappreciated, and have made it difficult for them to make ends meet.
Natasha De Stefano-Honey, a teacher for the past 14 years, claimed it was the worst time for the education she could recall outside Bishop Thomas Grant School in Streatham, south London.
She said, "Perhaps ten years ago, I would have strongly recommended teaching as a career. Now, I am one of those teachers who can't do that."
"Even though I enjoy teaching, it is just so difficult and exhausting. There aren't enough of us to complete the necessary work."