Protests sparked massive rise in days lost to strikes

14 Jun 07
Public sector trade unions' opposition to the government's reform agenda led to a massive increase in the number of working days lost to strikes last year, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics.

15 June 2007

Public sector trade unions' opposition to the government's reform agenda led to a massive increase in the number of working days lost to strikes last year, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics.

In 2006, 754,500 working days were lost to industrial action across both the public and private sectors in the UK, compared with just 157,400 the previous year. A total of 158 disputes escalated to strikes, and public sector walkouts accounted for over 90% of the total, the ONS revealed on June 11.

Over 83% of the total – 626,000 days – were lost to strikes by civil and public servants, and defence staff. A further 31,400 days, or 4% of the total, were lost to strikes in the education sector.

'Transport and communication' accounted for 40,500 days, or 5%. 'The most important causes of disputes in 2006 were over wages (a total of 552,200 days) and redundancy (166,700 days),' the ONS said. That reflects increasing public sector anger at the government's controversial reform programme, which has seen Chancellor Gordon Brown cap annual pay increases at 2%, identify more than 100,000 job cuts, and extend privatisation plans across the sector.

In the biggest strike in 2006, hundreds of thousands of local government staff walked out over plans to change their pension payments.

Figures for 2007 are also expected to be high: civil servants have already staged two national strikes this year and are considering a third, while nurses, local government, health and education staff are also considering industrial action. The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents civil service staff, has called for co-ordinated industrial action by unions.

The figures for 2006 were higher than those for any year during the 1990s, but fears of a return to the infamous 'winter of discontent' were off the mark: the number of days lost in the 1970s averaged 12.9 million. The UK also loses fewer working days to strikes than most other major industrialised economies.

But the ONS figures revealed wide regional variations. On average, the Northwest lost 53 days per 1,000 employees to strikes, while the figure in the Southeast was just five days per 1,000 staff.

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