We’ve reached day 26 on December’s strike calendar (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
Christmas has been and gone – but strikes still remain today.
People from across Britain’s major industries – such as highway workers, nurses and bus drivers – have all downed tools this month in protest over pay and working conditions.
Thousands are expected to take to the streets today for Boxing Day sales, but industrial action may hamper some journeys.
It was thought that December’s rail strikes could be called off after Rail Delivery Group (RDG) held talks with RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers).
However, the union’s boss Mick Lynch announced on December 4 that he had rejected the RDG’s offer of a 4% pay rise for 2022 and 2023.
He said it was unfortunate that the union had been ‘compelled to take this action due to the continuing intransigence of the employers’.
As a result, RMT members are staging an extra walk-out on Network Rail services from 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on December 27.
Tim Shoveller, Network Rail’s chief negotiator, has claimed the new walk-outs ‘expose RMT’s true priority, using the British public and Network Rail workers as pawns in a fight with the government’.
Rail staff are striking in a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions (Picture: Belinda Jiao/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Border Force staff belonging to the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) are taking part in strike action over eight days of the festive period.
Six airports across the country are affected.
Army personnel and government staff will be drafted in to check passports at arrivals halls during further walkouts between December 23 and New Year’s Eve.
Travellers were warned to brace themselves for delays amid fears the walkout of 1,000 staff working in passport booths could lead to long queues, people being held on planes and late departures.
The Army has been drafted in to cover Border Force strikes (Picture: SWNS)
But the use of military personnel trained to check passports appeared to have prevented them.
On Friday, a spokesman for Gatwick said: ‘Everything is going OK at the moment.
‘There’s plenty of staff. The e-gates are all operating. It’s going well. There’s no delays as far as we’re aware, and no queues at the moment.
‘I’m standing in arrivals and passengers are flowing through as normal.’
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Rail workers and Border force staff are taking industrial action.
