Teachers, nurses, civil servants and workers from other sectors held a strong day of struggle for rights

Half a million British workers are in struggle this February 1st, in a strike that can already be considered the biggest in the last 11 years.

Education workers are mobilizing (around 20,000 schools and more than 150 universities are closed), transport workers (RMT and ASLEF employees and train drivers are on strike), civil servants (around 100,000 civil servants from more than 120 government departments), ambulance drivers, firemen and nurses, and health workers (who are carrying out the first national strike in the union’s more than 100 year history).

The different categories are fighting for their specific demands, but there is much more in common in this massive struggle that is sweeping the country on February 1st, such as salary increases and better working conditions. In the United Kingdom, the British suffer from high inflation (for months it has been at 10%), a situation that pushes many families into poverty.

In an interview with CSP-Conlutas, the vice-president of the TUC Liverpool, Martin Ralph, told us how the process of struggles in the UK has been going on, what are the challenges faced by the working class and the advances needed for the struggle. He said that one of the most serious attacks comes from the government, and it is one of the common flags of the mobilized categories: the defence of the right to strike and to demonstrate.

The British parliament is trying to pass an anti-trade union law that attacks these rights and, as activists and trade unionists warn, tends to criminalize even more workers, social movements and trade union entities.

“This law is extremely repressive and will be used, if approved, to remove the right to protest and put more activists and workers in jail with preventive orders”, denounced the leader.

According to a survey by the British consultancy Public First, 59% of the British people support the nurses’ strike, 43% support the teachers and 36% the railway workers.

Check out some images from the day, with the records of the pickets, strikes, political activities and demonstrations: