"I definitely think there will be generalised action as we go through into the New Year.”
With NHS staff, postal workers, civil servants and rail workers all going on strike to demand better pay during the cost of living crisis, the RMT’s general secretary Mick Lynch has said that the country could soon see a general strike.
A general strike is essentially when a vast number of different unions and workers come together to go on strike to achieve economic or political goals.
Speaking to PoliticsJoe, Lynch said that there was a need for a ‘generalised response’. He said: “Well I definitely think there needs to be coordination between trade unions, the government is at the source of all these problems at the moment.
“It’s down to the public funding of public services, if you take the ambulance workers who are going to be out soon, education, health and all of the other services that are provided, it’s the government that’s at the heart of it and if you look at where the other governments are who are outside the control of Westminster, in Scotland they’ve settled public services almost completely.
“They’ve settled on rail, they’ve settled on the council workers and I think they’re moving towards the health services in Scotland and we’ve settled the railway disputes in Scotland. It’s the same in Wales where they’ve got devolved authority and certainly in the railway services, we’ve settled in Mersey Rail, Newcastle and in London to a large extent where the DFT doesn’t run for instance.
“But we need a generalised response, whether or not we can get a generalised strike or not is a matter of waiting to see what develops, but I definitely think there will be generalised action as we go through into the New Year.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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