LONDON (Dispatches) –
Thousands of ambulance workers held another strike across England and Wales on Monday, in escalating industrial action as unions called the government to hold talks on improving pay and conditions.
Ambulance workers began strike action on December 21 last year and further dates are planned for February.
Nurses have also launched unprecedented strike action, reflecting widespread discontent in the state-funded National Health Service whose staff are struggling with soaring living costs.
Monday’s industrial action comes ahead of mass simultaneous strikes planned for February 6 by unions representing both nurses and ambulance staff.
Monday’s strike involved members of three unions -- Unison, Unite and GMB -- in England and Wales.
Unison, the UK’s largest trade union, said up to 15,000 ambulance staff in England would be striking along with 5,000 members at hospitals in Liverpool in northwest England.
Unite said more than 2,600 of its ambulance worker members were striking in England and Wales, following a three-day strike last week.
“We’re trying to get the government to negotiate,” Unite general secretary Sharon Graham told BBC radio, accusing the government of inaction.
“It’s been five weeks since Unite ambulance workers were out and in that time there has been literally no meeting about the substantive issue of pay.
“There are absolutely no pay talks going ahead, it’s wrong to suggest that they are,” she added, even as Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said discussions were ongoing.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is “missing in action” and “needs to get more involved,” she added.
The GMB, whose members at one ambulance service in central England were striking Monday, addressed Barclay in a tweet saying: “We need to talk pay. We’re ready when you are.”
The London Ambulance Service advised people to only call the 999 emergency number in “life-threatening” situations and warned the public they “may be asked to organize transport to hospital”.
France has also been hit by protests, but the government on Monday moved forward with a fiercely contested pensions reform plan that would raise the retirement age to 64.
“Going back on this point (of the age increase) would be giving up on getting the system back in balance,” Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt said after the legislation was presented at a cabinet meeting, the last step before it enters parliamentary debate.
Apart from increasing the retirement age gradually from 62 now to 64 by 2030, the bill would increase the minimum number of years people must pay into the system to get a full pension to 43 from 42 at present.
Dussopt said the government “disagrees with trade unions”, who were at the forefront of a massive day of strikes and protests Thursday in which over 1.1 million people took to the streets against pension reform.
Unions are now gearing up for another strike day on January 31, warning they are prepared to further step up their actions if the government does not relent.
Ministers argue that the pension system will slip billions into deficit in the coming years and that savings must be found to avoid costly top-ups from general taxation.
They had hoped to mollify opponents by using some of the savings from the reform to pay for measures like a minimum pension of 1,200 euros ($1,300) per month, as well as by offering exemptions to the minimum age for those who started work in their teens.
Ministers must now shepherd the reform through parliament, where they face determined opposition especially from the left.
Francois Ruffin, a leading MP in the hard-left France Unbowed party, said Sunday that his colleagues would not try to bury the debate under an avalanche of 75,000 amendments as they had trailed.
Instead, the group would offer “firm opposition that will allow us to take the text and the government’s lies apart piece by piece,” Ruffin told broadcaster France 3.
He insisted that President Emmanuel Macron “isn’t doing this reform for economic reasons, for him it’s about stamping his authority” on the country.