Recent weeks have seen a spike in labor struggles in the Great Britain. About 40,000 people went on strike last Wednesday following the call of Rail, Maritime and Transport union RMT targeting the Rail companies that failed to comply to the demands of its workers as they are facing the highest inflation in 40 years with 9.4%. On last week's Friday and this week's Monday workers – from engineers to call center agents - at telecommunication monopolies British Telecommunications and Openreach also lay down their work. This however is only the tip of the iceberg of what is to hit GB later this month.
While yesterday Germany's airport ground personell was able to achieve a victory in the current round of collective bargaining after a successful strike last week through which they were able to increase pressure on German airline monopoly Lufthansa, forcing them to increase pay by at least 325€ / month (alongside further benefits) and totaling an overall pay rise of about 13.6% to 18.4%, some of the major Great Britain transportation monopolies are yet to face massive strike actions this month due to ongoing labor struggles.
Following the actions of RMT last week, another wave of strikes was announced for August 18th to 20th. The widespread support of the strike even mobilized further unions associated with the British rail system to follow suit and conduct successful votes among their membership to join the next round of strike actions. Shorty after the vote and the announced labor action however the leadership of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) gave in and betrayed their members vote to strike by making a crooked deal and thus weaken the effect of the simultaneous strikes and preventing a closing of ranks of the workers from different branches – much to the delight of GB’s Secretary of Transportation.
Felixstowe, Suffolk
Nevertheless, there will still be major disruptions due to strikes this month as London Underground and Overground staff operating London's Metro rejected a pay rise by 5% and will conduct their strike on August 19 as well. All of this happens on top of an Eight-Day Strike [!] in Great Britain's biggest Container Port in Felixstowe , Suffolk, that is scheduled to take place from Sunday 21 August to Monday 29 August. The announcement was made, after 92% of the dockers voted to reject the offer of 7% and go into action. Already weeks before the strike is to take place, warnings are being circulated about the suspected supply chain issues this will entail.
