LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 25: A view of the crowd at the RMT strike rally at Kings cross station on June 25, 2022 in London, United Kingdom. The biggest rail strikes in 30 years started on Monday night continuing on Thursday and again Saturday, with trains cancelled across the UK for much of the week.
Guy Smallman/Getty Images
LONDON — Amid political upheaval, an economic crisis and the potential for mass industrial action, Britain faces a problematic, and possibly pivotal, summer.
U.K. inflation came in at a 40-year high of 9.4% annually in June and pay packets are failing to keep pace, with real wages plunging and workers across sectors becoming more disgruntled.
The Office for National Statistics on Tuesday reported total pay increases of 7.2% in the private sector and 1.5% in the public sector in the three months to the end of May, for an overall average of 6.2%.
This led to a decline in real wages — those adjusted for inflation — of 3.7% excluding bonuses, the worst annual drop since records began in 2001.
Workers across pillars of the economy have been voting for industrial action over below-inflation pay offers — including transport workers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, postal workers, civil servants, lawyers and British Telecoms engineers.
The Fire Brigades Union said Wednesday, the day after London’s fire service experienced its busiest day since World War II, that “firefighters are at the forefront of the climate emergency.”
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