Is Labours Summer Of Discontent On The Way?
As the number of strike ballots planned in the UK over the next few months continues to rise there are fears that we may be heading towards a summer of discontent in the UK. This week sees the balloting of 800,000 public sector workers after a 2% pay offer from the government was firmly rejected by the unions. This is on top of the proposed strike by education workers over their working climate and pay, something which will have a massive impact on the UK schools system, affectively bringing it to a halt.
While Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have been trying to play down the risk of strike action in the UK because of public sector pay offers, there is a real threat of feeding inflation if they give in to some of the union demands. At a time when the Labour vote is way behind that of the Conservative Party this is probably the last thing that the government wanted to see. If they refuse to give in to demands for higher pay rises they risk alienating the public and the workers and if they give in then inflation will rise and there will be accusations of yet more u-turns.
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