Postal workers, university lecturers and sixth-form college staff have set in motion a fresh wave of strikes today as the year of industrial unrest continues to snowball into the winter months.
Picket lines were mounted outside universities, colleges and Royal Mail centres across the country on Wednesday amid warnings of further planned walkouts in the run-up to Christmas.
National Education Union (NEU) teacher members who work in 77 sixth-form colleges in England are striking in a dispute over pay after suffering a real-terms pay cut of an estimated 20 per cent since 2010, it said.
Meanwhile, a respresentative for the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has said Royal Mail workers were taking a stand to protect “this great public” institution against being turned into “another gig economy service.”
Elsewhere, Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, has indicated that the army will be “incredibly welcome” to help support the health service this winter after The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) scheduled its own walkouts on 15 and 20 December.
The comments came after Unison announced last night that paramedics and other ambulance workers had backed taking industrial action.
