Millions face disruption as strikes hit schools, trains, universities and ...
Key events
Thousands of students have joined striking university staff on picket lines across the country, the University and College Union (UCU) has said.
Universities across the UK have been hit by strike action, with lectures and seminars cancelled, as 70,000 staff have started a series of walkouts.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, told PA News:
University staff have turned out in massive numbers on picket lines today. Their anger over falling pay, insecure employment and pension cuts is impossible to ignore.
Grady added: “We have been overwhelmed by the support of thousands of students who have joined us on picket lines across the country. They recognise that vice-chancellors are wrecking the sector and are determined to stand with us and fix it.”
SummaryWelcome to those joining our live coverage of today’s strikes, the single biggest day of UK industrial action for more than a decade.
With up to half a million people participating in a coordinated strike today involving teachers, civil servants, border force staff and train drivers, here’s where things stand:
Thousands of students have joined striking university staff on picket lines across the country, the University and College Union (UCU) said. Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the support of thousands of students who have joined us on picket lines across the country.”
The former shadow chancellor has said public sector pay rises can be paid for by taxing capital gains at the same level as income. John McDonnell MP said: “we just need a fair taxation system. The issue at the moment is that we seem to have a Government that is redistributing wealth upwards.”
The TUC has not ruled out taking the government to court if the minimum service levels bill is passed into law. Trades Union Congress assistant general secretary Kate Bell said the legislation is “unnecessary, unfair and almost certainly illegal”.
The Welsh government education minister said the blame for the strikes lies with the UK government. As the government tries to resolve the dispute, Jeremy Miles said: “there are very real constraints on the Welsh government’s budget because of the frankly disgraceful position the UK government aren’t making enough funding available across the UK for public services.”
A deal that would bring an end to strikes is “further away than when we started” following months of failed negotiations with the government, said the Aslef general secretary, Mick Whelan. “This isn’t a new government – the same people have been in place for 12 years,” he told PA Media.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “I think Gillian Keegan [the education secretary] is hoping our strike is ineffective and people won’t do it again.” He added: “I think she’s wrong about that. There could be further action. She needs to do a deal so that that doesn’t happen.”
The National Education Union stands ready to negotiate once the education secretary “gets her act together and her story straight”, said union chief Mary Bousted. “Unfortunately about 85% of schools will be impacted for a strike that didn’t need to happen if the government had been prepared to negotiate,” she said.
Heathrow airport said it was operating as normal with minimal queuing in immigration halls despite the strike by border force workers. “Heathrow is fully operational, passengers are flowing through the border smoothly with Border Force and the military contingency providing a good level of service for arriving passengers,” a spokesperson for the airport said.
Paying public sector workers is a matter of “political priority”, said the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), Mark Serwotka. He said the government claimed it would cost £29bn to give every public sector worker what they’ve demanded; however, its calculations are near £10bn. “And £10bn in an economy like ours can easily be found,” said Serwotka.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan told Sky News “our objective this year is to get rid of the problem, which is inflation.” Keegan told Times Radio she was “disappointed” that a strike by teachers in England and Wales are going ahead and said the industrial action was unnecessary as discussions with the unions were continuing.
Here’s a look at who is striking today:
Transport – Aslef and RMT train drivers are striking, causing disruption on services across the country
Higher education – University staff across 120 universities who are members of the University and College Union (UCU) launch 18 days of strike action across February and March
Education – Teachers belonging to both the National Education Union (NEU) are striking across England and Wales; and in Scotland, teachers who are members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) in Clackmannanshire and Aberdeen continue strike action
Civil Service – More than 100,000 civil servants are striking across 124 government departments
The former shadow chancellor has said public sector pay rises can be paid for by taxing capital gains at the same level as income.
John McDonnell MP told the PA news agency:
We just need a fair taxation system. The issue at the moment is that we seem to have a Government that is redistributing wealth upwards. For example, if capital gains tax was at the same level as income tax, we would be able to afford a decent pay rise.
McDonnell added: “£17bn it would raise, TUC figures but also assessed independently as well.”
When asked whether the minimum service levels bill will ever be implemented, he said: “I can’t see it. It has had an adverse effect, people are even more determined now, it has provoked even more strikes to happen… My view is that Labour MPs should be on picket lines.”
Richard Adams
The Universities and Colleges Employers Association has been quick to claim this morning that the strikes by University and College Union staff at UK universities has caused only “low and isolated levels of disruption to students’ studies”.
“Unlike today’s schools’ strikes, all higher education institutions are open and operational with only isolated lectures impacted,” the UCEA said in a statement.
However, the UCU’s social media displayed a large number of picket lines and rallies around the country taking place this morning, including a large rally of UCU members in Brighton.
Jessica Murray
Over at the University of Birmingham campus, staff were striking for the first of ten planned strike days in February.
The UCU is calling on universities to improve their 4-5% pay offer and, as part of a longer-running dispute, revoke pensions cuts which will see a reduced retirement income for staff.
“People are exhausted and fed up, enough is enough with the huge rises and cost of living. You can see it, everybody is out. Nurses are out, the train drivers are out, the railway staff are out, the postal workers are out,” said Anke Buttner, secretary of the University of Birmingham UCU.
“It’s hugely encouraging to see that you’re not the only one shouting into the void. There’s a lot of us.”
Harjinder Kaur-Aujla, president of the UCU branch, added: “It feels like the whole population is being gaslit. It’s like the government are saying there isn’t a problem. But then how can all these unions be saying there is a problem?”
Both said staff had been particularly frustrated their demands had been branded as “woke” during negotiations.
“When trying to raise basic issues is being referred to as woke, I think we’re missing a lack of basic empathy,” said Buttner.
James McAsh
As a teacher, I quickly learned the value of respect. If your class knows you have their best interests at heart, then nine times out of 10, the children will work hard for you. But if they think you don’t care about them, then you risk classroom rebellion.
The government is learning this lesson too. Today, striking teachers like me in England and Wales will shut thousands of schools. Officially, it’s a pay dispute – but it’s much more than that. Teachers feel downtrodden, demoralised and disrespected. Workload is through the roof and pay through the floor. Pressure has never been higher and morale never lower. It’s tearing apart our education system, at the cost of children’s futures. Teachers are on strike because the government does not respect us or our profession.
At my primary school, I’ve had a front-row seat to conditions getting worse and worse over the past few years. The moment that convinced me to go on strike was when my school lost its specialist art teacher, and was unable to recruit another. Activities such as art, music and sport are the highlight of the week for a lot of pupils, but they’re the first to go when resources are short. It was yet another sign that this government is willing to leave pupils with the bare minimum.
Read more here:
Tobi Thomas
Outside Bishop Thomas Grant School in Streatham, South London, dozens of teachers joined the picket line, protesting against what they say are untenable conditions within the education sector for both workers and students.
Amid chants of “teachers say fair pay”, Diane Wilkinson, a languages teacher at Bishop Thomas Grant and the school’s NEU rep, said that she and her colleagues were striking as a “last resort”.
“The government haven’t been listening to us, and because like much of the public sector we have experienced a real terms pay cut in the last 10 years which has been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.”
“A knock-on effect of that is that we don’t have enough teachers coming into the profession. So we’re striking for the future of education”.
Wilkinson has experienced the effects firsthand of the lack of government funding in the sector, most notably regarding recruitment. “It’s very difficult to find teachers for various subjects, and here we have people teaching exam subjects which they are not qualified to teach,” she says. “It’s only going to get worse”.
Lucy MacDonald, who has been an English teacher at Bishop Thomas Grant, said that the lack of financial investment within the education sector can be visibly seen on a day-to-day basis.
“For English, we have to rely on very old books which are used throughout the years which are falling apart and have to be taped together,” MacDonald said. “We simply don’t have the money to replace them”.
Bell Riberio-Addy, the MP for Streatham, showed her support for the strikers on the picket line, saying that the teachers were striking for the “future of education”.
“They’re not just striking because [some teachers] are living within in work poverty, they’re striking because they want a better service for the children they teach. But they can’t do that at the moment under the current conditions”, Riberio-Addy said.
She added: “Under the Tories, public sector pay has stagnated, and living conditions have gotten worse. We need to invest more in our teachers.”
Jessica Murray
Outside the Gambling Commission office in Birmingham, one of a number of civil servant picket lines dotted throughout the city, strikers said they had received a positive response from the public.
“It’s always nerve wracking putting your fight in front of the people, which is what we’re doing, but it’s just been positive,” said PCS union rep, Justin Price. “If we were paid a decent, honest wage, we wouldn’t have to turn to charities to get through the cost of living crisis that, in my opinion, has been exacerbated by the tories.”
Around the corner, outside a West Midlands government office hub, another union rep said overall morale in the civil service was particularly low.
“For many years now civil servants have faced declining living standards, less job security and poorer pensions. Despite the fact inflation is clearly high at the moment, we received only an average 3% pay increase, so that’s a 7-8% real time cut,” he said.
Like many on the picket lines, he agreed the national day of strike action, across multiple unions and sectors, had strengthened resolve among workers.
“I think this is an important moment,” he said. “History will show us but maybe one day, looking back, 2023 will be seen as the year where people decided that we could have a better country, and we could have a better life.”
The TUC has not ruled out taking government to court if minimum service levels bill passed into lawSpeaking on a civil servants picket line outside HM Treasury, Trades Union Congress assistant general secretary Kate Bell told PA News the legislation “unnecessary, unfair and almost certainly illegal”.
Bell added:
We think it is notable that even Jacob Rees-Mogg, who would not normally describe himself as a friend of trade unions, was criticising this bill pretty heavily as being a pretty shoddy piece of legislation.
“We will take every measure we can to defend the right to strike and we are looking very carefully at how we will be able to, if this bill does go through, tackle it legally,” said Bell.
That right to strike… is embedded into UK law… it is very clear that we do have those rights protected and we will be doing everything we can to defend them.”
Bell visited the Treasury on Wednesday to hand in the TUC’s budget submissions, which she said would give public sector workers a fully funded pay rise and provide a longer-term plan to grow the economy.
Richard Adams
Staff at the Student Loans Company, which administers tuition fee and maintenance loans to tertiary students across the UK, have also walked out today, as part of the strike action by members of the PCS civil servants union.
“We have taken steps to ensure continuity of service for our customers,” a spokesperson for the SLC said.
PCS members at the Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England, are also on strike, as are staff at the Department for Education and at Ofsted, the schools inspectorate for England. Ofsted has said it will not conduct scheduled inspections of schools during strike days.
Rory Carroll
Staff members with secure contracts at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) are holding handwritten placards detailing the experiences of colleagues with insecure employment.
“I taught with flu and a fever because we had no sick pay,” said one. “The possibility of having stable housing or retirement is a pipe dream,” said another.
Other messages said uncertainty over getting a new contract or a permanent job damaged mental health and quality of life. “For meetings I had to leave at 4am and stay in a hostel because hotels were too expensive,” said one.
The picket - on a cold, wet Wednesday in Northern Ireland – is part of the UK-wide action by the University and College Union (UCU). Some staff at Ulster University also went on strike.
Members of the Unite union at Queen’s marched in solidarity. “It may be damp but our resolve and fire for change is roaring!” the union tweeted.
