LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is facing its biggest day of coordinated industrial action for decades on Feb. 1 as staff from sectors across the economy walk out in an effort to win pay rises that better reflect double-digit inflation.
Healthcare workers are also taking coordinated action on Feb. 6 for the first time, in what is set to be the biggest day of action in Britain’s state-funded National Health Service.
WHO IS STRIKING ON FEB. 1?
TEACHERS
Teachers from the National Education Union in England and Wales will take the first of several days of strike action, impacting 23,400 schools.
The NEU, Britain’s largest education union, with around 500,000 members, has said the government offered its members a 5% pay rise which it says equated to a pay cut.
UNIVERSITY STAFF
More than 70,000 staff at 150 universities represented by the University and College Union will strike in a dispute over pay, saying they have had a pay rise worth 3% this year imposed following over a decade of below-inflation pay awards.
TRAIN DRIVERS
Thousands of train drivers from the ASLEF and RMT unions will stage the first of two days of walkouts after rejecting a pay offer, the latest in months of travel disruption caused by the long-running dispute over pay.
GOVERNMENT STAFF
More than 100,000 workers from the PCS union in government departments and public bodies will take part in a one-day strike.
Those walking out include staff at the Department for Transport, the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office.
National Highways, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Office for National Statistics and the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency are among other impacted bodies. Services such as driving tests could be affected, the government has warned.
WHO IS STRIKING ON FEB. 6?
AMBULANCE WORKERS
Ambulance staff from the Unite and GMB unions are taking a fresh wave of action starting on Feb. 6 in an ongoing dispute over pay.
The GMB said more than 10,000 ambulance workers in England and Wales, including paramedics, emergency care assistants and call handlers, will strike on Feb. 6, Feb. 20, March 6 and March 20.
Unite said ambulance workers in England would walk out on Feb. 6, Feb. 17, Feb. 20, Feb. 22, Mar. 6 and Mar. 20, with members in different regions holding walk-outs on different days.
NURSES
Tens of thousands of nurses in England will launch their third wave of action, walking out for 12 hours each on Feb. 6 and 7, if progress is not made by the end of January in pay negotiations with the government, the Royal College of Nursing union has said.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
