Christmas strikes: Government to hold crisis meetings as army called in
The government will hold a series of crisis meetings this week to try and minimise disruption during widespread Christmas strikes, with the government now calling in the military.
Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden will convene two Cobra meetings with ministers from several departments as the UK faces crippling strikes in hospitals, airports and railways.
The Cabinet Office last night announced army personnel were also being trained to fill in for striking workers, including Border Force agents at airports and ports.
Dowden said the upcoming wave of strike action “will cause disruption for millions of hardworking people”.
“The government will do all it can to mitigate the impact of this action, but the only way to stop the disruption completely is for Union bosses to get back round the table and call off these damaging strikes,” he said.
“Of course we want to ensure that people are paid fairly, but what isn’t fair is for union bosses to put people’s livelihoods at risk in order to push their pay demands to the front of the queue.”
The government said last night that it could not afford to give public sector workers an 11 per cent inflation-linked pay increase as it would cost £28bn.
Thousands of nurses across the country are set to go on strike on Thursday and on 20 December, after demanding a 17 per cent pay increase.
Royal College of Nurses (RCN) chief Pat Cullen said yesterday that the union may be willing to budge on the pay demand, after initial offers of between 4 and 5 per cent were turned down this year.
A spokesperson for the RCN said an “urgent meeting that the government would really benefit from convening is with us”.
“Negotiate now and pause these strikes,” they said.
Transport workers will also walk off the job over eight days this month, with rail services set to be severely crippled throughout the Christmas period, while airports are bracing for chaos due to striking border agents.
Rishi Sunak last week said he was looking at new strike-busting legislation, with Number 10 reportedly looking at laws to make ambulance strikes illegal.
The Prime Minister said that if “leaders continue to be unreasonable it is my duty to take action to protect the lives and livelihoods of the British public”.