Three Strikes and you’re out…
Or how about 1.6 million?
If you’re living in Britain and have not been impacted by at least one strike in the last 12 months, you’re either lucky or actively avoiding the use of public services
In total, 1.6 million work days were lost to strikes in the United Kingdom between June and November 2022. This is more days lost than any year since at least 1990 when 1.9 million work days were lost¹
Most are protesting at the lack of additional pay and support due to the increased cost of living and the impact of the strikes on the country has been striking
Who has been striking? And how often?
In total, at least 14 sectors have been on strike at least once over the last 12 months. In December alone, there was at least one of 17 groups striking on every day of the month (some in the same sector)
Two sets of strikes which have attracted a lot of attention have been the National Health Service (NHS) and the railways
So far, various different parts of the NHS have been on strike:
- Junior Doctors were one of the first groups in the NHS to strike in recent history, withdrawing their labour on 12 January 2016 and then again on 10 February and 24 April of the same year. This group is currently balloting for a national strike to take place in March 2023
- Nurses held their first walkout in the history of the NHS last year and have another 4 days planned in February and March 2023
- Paramedics and Ambulance workers have also been striking, including action taking place on 21st and 28th December, followed by some ambulance workers striking on 23rd, 24th and 26th January. They have further strike action coming with 2 days of national strikes in February and regional walkouts occurring on another 5 days in the month
- Physios are the latest group of NHS workers to strike, with 2 days planned in February (one in Wales and the other in England)
However, railway workers were striking long before NHS staff walked out
There had been a series of occasional strikes by various groups of railway workers between 2016 and 2019, although this heightened with 8 days of strike action across various parts of the network in the summer 2022
Further strikes in September 2022 were called off following the Queen’s death, but this was followed by action on 1st and 5th October, 26th November and on 8 days around Christmas. We’ve now had over 20 days of rail strikes in just over 6 months
On top of this, some rail strikes have coincided with action held by workers on the London Underground. There has been strike action on the Underground before (8 times between 2010-17), but between June and November 2022, workers staged 5 separate walkouts
Some of the other sectors that have been on strike include Bus Drivers, Teachers, Barristers, Postal Services, Container Port staff, Civil Service workers, Telecoms, Refuse Workers, Driving Examiners, Border Agency staff, National Highways staff and Eurostar security staff
How does this differ with previous strikes?
Industrial action had become a lot less common over the last couple of decades
For most people, the 1970s and 1980s are remembered as the time of frequent striking, and for good reason:
- In 1979, 29.5 million days of work were lost to strikes, the peak for this period in a period known as the ‘Winter of Discontent’
- Almost as many were lost during Miners strikes at the start and end of these decades, with 27.1 million days lost to strikes in 1984 and 23.9 million days going this way in 1972
However, this is nothing compared to 1926. This is when a General Strike was called across the country. For 9 days, 1.5 million coal miners, dockworkers, iron workers, printers, railwaymen, steelworkers and other transport workers stopped working, effectively shutting down the country
Between 1990–2018 (the most recent data available), no more than 2 million days have been lost to strikes in a single year and the total number of days lost across these three decades (17.8 million) was lower than in a single year in 1972, 1979 or 1984
How many other countries have strikes?
Let’s start with Europe, as they have the best data on Industrial Action
France is well known for its fondness for protest. They had the highest average number of days of strikes between 2008–2016/17 at 118 days lost per 1,000 workers
Following them were Denmark (116 days per 1,000 workers) and Belgium (88 days), followed by Canada (74 days) as the highest non-European country in the list
Outside of Europe, strikes do occur but are recorded less consistently. Some examples of this, though, are:
- Australia and New Zealand, although they strike less frequently than the top European countries. For example, Australia had 182 disputes in the year to September 2022, losing a total of 244,000 work days (a lot, but still below Britain’s)
- Strikes occur across India, but vary a lot by state. Across the country, 370,000 days were lost across 210 strikes in the three years to 2020, mostly in the public sector. The state of Kerala lost the most days out of all states (88,000), while Tamil Nadu had the highest number of individual strikes (51)
- Strikes in South Africa started to sky rocket in 2022 with 1.6 million days lost in the first half of the year (up from 45,000 in the same period the year before)
Will this be continuing?
Well, for Britain at least, this doesn’t look like the end of strike disruption
There are over 20 strikes across 9 groups of workers that have taken place, or are planned to, in February 2023 alone, such as:
- London Buses: 1st, 2nd and 3rd February
- Railways: 1st and 3rd
- Civil Servants: 1st and 9th
- Teachers: 1st (England & Wales), 14th (Wales) and 28th (North and North West England, Yorkshire and Humber)
- Nurses: 6th and 7th
- Ambulance staff: 6th and 20th, plus regional strikes occurring on 10th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd and 24th
- NHS Physios: 7th (Wales) and 9th (some of England)
- Royal Mail: 16th February
- University Staff: are expected to be striking on 11 occasions throughout the month
Note¹: data are not available between February 2020 and May 2022
Check out more GoodStats on Work and the Economy:
- It’s off to work we go! Who employs the high-ho high-ho highest?
- Cash Cash Money; Have you moved away from cash yet?
- Up, up and up again; And you thought life was expensive before
