{"id":15079,"date":"2023-01-31T18:06:19","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T18:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/?p=15079"},"modified":"2023-01-31T18:06:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T18:06:20","slug":"sunak-tries-to-stay-above-fray-as-public-sector-strikes-proceed-industrial-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/sunak-tries-to-stay-above-fray-as-public-sector-strikes-proceed-industrial-motion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunak tries to stay above fray as public sector strikes proceed | Industrial motion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

As teachers prepare to join the latest wave of industrial action battering Rishi Sunak\u2019s government this week, there is little sign of either side backing down.<\/p>\n

Teachers in England and Wales will strike on Wednesday, alongside university staff, train drivers and 100,000 civil servants across scores of separate workplaces.<\/p>\n

Nurses and ambulance workers will follow next week in an unprecedented joint stoppage, raising the stakes in their long-running dispute yet higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are adding it to a long list of \u2018things wrong with the country\u2019,\u201d says James Johnson, of the pollsters JL Partners.<\/p>\n

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class=”dcr-13d0msz”><\/iframe><\/p>\nSunak\u2019s strategy appears to be to hold firm, perhaps in the hope that public support falls away, helping to squeeze striking workers into settling for minor concessions.<\/p>\nMinisters hope they can confine these to the coming year\u2019s pay round, after Jeremy Hunt\u2019s March budget. No 10 has suggested any pay rise above about 3.5% would have to come with improvements to \u201cproductivity and efficiency\u201d.<\/p>\nBut union leaders have continued to insist their members need more money now, to help them cope with double-digit inflation and start to reverse years of real-terms cuts.<\/p>\n\u201cGood leaders are good listeners, something that seems to be beyond this government,\u201d says Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB. \u201cAmbulance workers and NHS staff have been telling ministers that our health service is in crisis because it can\u2019t recruit and retain the people it needs. The starting point is to talk pay now.\u201d<\/p>\nOne Labour frontbencher suggested the government might be hoping the teachers\u2019 strikes, which kicked off in England and Wales this week and have been running in Scotland for some time, have enough impact on the public\u2019s lives to undermine any sympathy they might have.<\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019re obviously holding out for the teachers, because that tends to be the least popular of any strike. I think they are absolutely counting on that as being the tipping point,\u201d they said, suggesting this was a misreading of the public mood.<\/p>\nRecent polling by Ipsos put support for teachers\u2019 strikes at 41%, with 33% opposed. Public support for the nurses\u2019 strikes waned significantly, from 59% in November to 45% this month, as the dispute drags on. But that still outweighed the 30% of those surveyed who were against.<\/p>\n<\/span>NHS nurses in London hold banners during a strike.<\/span> Photograph: Toby Melville\/Reuters<\/p>\nAnd, crucially for any hopes ministers may have of winning the PR battle, when asked whom they blamed for the strikes continuing, 57% said the government.<\/p>\nLuke Tryl, of the thinktank More in Common, which carries out focus groups (including for the Guardian) says: \u201cPart of the reason the government strategy of \u2018stick it to the unions\u2019 isn\u2019t working, is that people\u2019s approval of the government is so low, that their general inclination is not to take the government\u2019s side on the issue.\u201d<\/p>\nUnion insiders believe it has also helped their cause that many of the current crop of general secretaries are some distance from the stereotype of the \u201cunion baron\u201d \u2013 not least because they are women.<\/p>\nChristina McAnea of Unison, Pat Cullen of the Royal College of Nursing and Sharon Graham of Unite have repeatedly stressed the parlous state of public services, as well as the demands of their cash-strapped, burnt-out members.<\/p>\nThe University and College Union\u2019s Jo Grady is a 38-year-old academic, whose specialist subject is trade unions and pension disputes. As a collective, they hardly give the impression of being shadowy union fat cats.<\/p>\n\u201cWe all know that the last 13 years have taken the NHS to breaking point,\u201d Graham says. \u2018\u201cWe have over 130,000 unfilled vacancies and more people are leaving every day. So the strikes have huge public support because the public understands that these workers who came out in the pandemic are fighting not only for better pay but also to save the NHS from this act of national self-harm being perpetuated by the government.\u201d<\/p>\nPolls<\/p>\nSome cabinet ministers have appeared more hardline than others in recent weeks.<\/p>\nThe transport secretary, Mark Harper, has allowed the Rail Delivery Group to make a fresh offer in the long-running rail dispute, which is currently being considered by the RMT.<\/p>\nThat marked a sharp contrast to his predecessor the keenly political Grant Shapps, who declined to meet with rail unions.<\/p>\nArchie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning<\/p>\nPrivacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\nThe health secretary, Steve Barclay, has appeared to flip-flop between an amenable \u201cmy door is open\u201d approach, to a much more accusatory tone, warning that striking ambulance workers had \u201cmade a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients\u201d, for example. Reports that he was preparing to offer a one-off hardship payment to unblock the talks earlier this month were quickly denied.<\/p>\nUnison\u2019s head of health, Sara Gorton, who has been involved in the negotiations, says: \u201cIt looked like the tide had begun to turn with some ministers finally prepared to talk about pay. But now it feels as if the government\u2019s digging in, and strikes are set to escalate.\u201d<\/p>\nAt the same time, the government is pressing ahead with its minimum service levels bill. Aimed at blunting future strikes, the unions see the controversial legislation as a declaration of war. Keir Starmer has said a Labour government would repeal it.<\/p>\nI have never seen an abdication of leadership like this in all my days<\/p>\nSome Conservative MPs, including the former party chair Jake Berry, have dared to suggest the \u00a31,400 across-the-board offer for nursing staff is \u201ctoo low\u201d and should be increased.<\/p>\nBut Hunt has stuck carefully to the line that he cannot revisit this year\u2019s pay deals, for fear of unleashing a fresh round of inflation.<\/p>\nA Treasury source says: \u201cWe\u2019ve already been clear that we\u2019re not reopening this year\u2019s pay process. We\u2019re going to keep saying that, because it\u2019s not changing.<\/p>\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want to do anything that risks embedding high prices into our economy for any longer than is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\nKate Bell, the TUC\u2019s deputy general secretary, argues that the Treasury\u2019s stance makes little economic sense.<\/p>\n\u201cOf course we\u2019ve had a high inflationary environment, but I think everyone is pretty aware that it\u2019s come from external factors, not internal pay pressure,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re now facing a very real threat of a recession, and government\u2019s key message seems to be, \u2018We\u2019d like to hold down the pay of public sector workers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nShe adds that private sector pay growth has been running at more than twice the rate of the public sector (7.1% in the latest official data, against 3.3% for public sector workers). A number of industrial disputes in the private sector \u2013 between the Communication Workers Union and call centre workers at BT, for example \u2013 have been settled with additional pay increases.<\/p>\nSunak, whose leadership has been in the spotlight over sleaze, has largely chosen to stay out of the public debate over industrial action, aside from repeatedly describing the government\u2019s approach as \u201creasonable\u201d.<\/p>\nGraham says: \u201cIf any private sector strike was at the stage of the NHS dispute the chief executive would be in the room negotiating. Rishi Sunak is effectively the government\u2019s chief executive and should be leading the negotiations. Instead he is posted missing.<\/p>\n\u201cI have never seen an abdication of leadership like this in all my days.\u201d<\/p>\nWith more strike days planned across the NHS \u2013 including a simultaneous stoppage by nurses and ambulance workers next week \u2013 it seems unlikely Sunak will be able to remain above the fray for much longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As teachers prepare to join the latest wave of industrial action battering Rishi Sunak\u2019s government this week, there is little sign of either side backing down. Teachers in England and Wales will strike on Wednesday, alongside university staff, train drivers and 100,000 civil servants across scores of separate workplaces. Nurses and ambulance workers will follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15079"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15082,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15079\/revisions\/15082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}