Around 60,000 junior doctors are expected to begin strike action today (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
This week is set to be one of the biggest weeks of strike action in recent years with workers from all industries heading to the picket lines.
Today junior doctors will begin their three-day strike action, while they will be joined by airport staff, Ofsted and Amazon workers.
Later this week teachers, bus, train and Tube staff will also all also begin action.
Meanwhile, thousands of teachers will walk out of schools on Wednesday in a bitter row over pay – affecting some seven million pupils.
Ambulance workers in Britain have been striking for months over pay, staff shortages, burnout and longstanding issues with the services worsened by government cuts (Picture: Getty Images Europe)
London Underground services will be crippled on Wednesday because of a strike by members of Aslef and the Rail, Maritime and Transport union in a row over pensions and conditions.
Finn Brennan, Aslef’s full-time organiser on the Underground, said: ‘This is not a strike about pay or for more time off. It is about making sure that change and ‘modernisation’ comes about by agreement.
‘Central government has used the effects of the pandemic to insist that Transport for London targets staff pensions and working conditions.
‘They have no problem bailing out the banks or handing out billions of pounds in dubious contracts to their chums but they refuse to properly fund vital services like public transport in this country.
‘The Government wants London Underground staff to fill the hole in it has made in TfL’s budget by accepting huge cuts to their pension benefits and changes to working conditions that would destroy our work/life balance and slash their income in retirement.
‘Aslef members just aren’t prepared to accept that. That is why we are on strike this week.
Amazon workers will continue to strike for the whole of this week (Picture: PA)
‘We are always prepared to discuss and negotiate but we need TfL to accept that any change is not imposed but has to come by agreement.’
Rail services will be disrupted because of strikes by the RMT on Thursday and Saturday at a number of train operators which will lead to widespread cancellations.
Members of the GMB union working for Amazon in Coventry will strike all week in a pay dispute.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘Rishi Sunak has learned nothing from his failed approach to strikes in the NHS, which have already led to 140,000 cancelled operations and appointments.
‘He’s repeating the same mistakes again by refusing to negotiate with junior doctors, the very doctors who represent the future of the NHS.
‘Patients won’t forgive Rishi Sunak for not even trying to stop these strikes going ahead, when they could be catastrophic for patient safety.’
This week could see the biggest strike action in years across the UK.
