“Just under half (47 percent) support strike action versus 34 percent opposed"
Despite the Tories pledging to bring in tougher anti-strike legislation, with Britain already possessing some of the most restrictive anti-union laws in Europe, public support for striking workers continues to hold up.
The government has sought to portray striking workers demanding better pay and conditions as selfish and greedy and accused them of holding the country to ransom in recent weeks, with the Border Force, nurses, paramedics and postal workers now joining the railway strikers in demanding better pay and conditions.
The RMT in particular has faced criticism over recent days over its decision to strike over the Christmas period, with general secretary Mick Lynch hitting back at the BBC yesterday for “pursuing an editorial line that I could read in the Sun or the Daily Mail, or any of the right-wing press in this country”.
The Sun today printed a front-page accusing the RMT boss of ‘losing it’, however, the public it seems are still on the side of railway workers.
Politico reports on the latest polling by Savanta which shows that: “Just under half (47 percent) support strike action versus 34 percent opposed, compared with 50 percent in support of, and 29 percent opposed, at the end of October.
“Forty percent blame the government for the railway strikes, while 37 percent blame the trade unions and only 11 percent blame the workers themselves.”
Rishi Sunak is clearly having a tough time trying to portray the unions as villains as he tries desperately to shift the blame for the strikes onto the workers and unions.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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