Mass UK strikes as winter of discontent grows
Saeed Pourreza
Press TV, London
It's been described as the biggest coordinated industrial action in decades. Half a million people from across the public sector, out on streets, in picket lines, in England and Wales, are demanding better pay and conditions.
Among them some 300 thousand teachers on day-one of a strike across the nation affecting more than 23 thousand schools.
New figures show three in 10 of all the teachers qualified since 2011 have since left the profession because they felt underpaid and undervalued. The teachers here tell us they don't want to be on strike. That all they're asking for is more funding for their schools and inflation-matching pay rises.
The government has called the walkout unfair with Education secretary Gillian Keegan saying: inflationary rises will make things worse, that these are unprecedented economic times. The teachers blame government inaction that’s ultimately hurting students.
The demand for inflation busting pay rises is shared by the hundreds of thousands of others in the public sector such as the health service, as well as university staff, civil servants and train drivers who are also striking today.
More walkouts are planned for the coming weeks, meaning the UK's winter of industrial discontent continues to grow.
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