As winter paves way for spring, strikes continue as workers fight against falling living standards. On March 15 — the UK Government’s Budget Day – hundreds of thousands of workers in different unions and workplaces withdrew their labour, as questions emerge over next steps. Adwitiya Pal reports from the strike rally in Cardiff.
Words and images by Adwitiya Pal
On a day when the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, put forward his new budget, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers across the country took to the streets to draw attention to the callousness of the government towards their plight, many steadfast in their belief that these strikes can succeed in winning a fair pay rise.
In Cardiff, Trades Union Congress (TUC) Cymru organised a massive ‘Support the Strike’ rally, joined by hundreds of striking workers from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, University and College Union (UCU) and Prospect Union.
Workers made their way to Central Square from the dozens of picket lines in the city on Wednesday morning, where they were also joined by members from UNISON Cymru/Wales, the National Education Union (NEU) Cymru, Cardiff Trades Council and others with flags of solidarity flying around.
Across the many picket lines, the sentiment was shared — that people are suffering, and the strikes, which some workers have been on for months now, are the only option to make the government and employers listen.
“The money that we’re collecting for the Exchequer, that’s going into the pockets of the rich and the Tory donors.”
Paul Kindred, a PCS member and a civil servant since the 1980s, told voice.wales about the importance of targeted strike action. “Today, we have a national campaign with workers across different parts of the public sector all coming together in a comprehensive, unified way. This is exactly what we need,” he said.
In the last two months, the country has seen not one, but two days of massive joint action. February 1 was the biggest day of strike action in over a decade — until March 15, dubbed ‘Walkout Wednesday’, as teachers, university staff, junior doctors, civil servants, journalists, bus drivers and London tube workers staged walkouts.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said that it is “no surprise that workers are having to strike as they can’t take much more of Britain’s real-wage slump”, as the TUC urged the Chancellor to invest in the crumbling public services, boost pay across different sectors including implementing £15 minimum wage as soon as possible, cancel hiking energy prices, and ensure fair taxation.
However, none of these demands were met by Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget. With the energy rebate ending this month, households will be paying £67 more per month, according to Warm This Winter, while also allocating £6 billion for cutting fuel duties after spending months saying that they didn’t have funds to pay teachers and nurses. Even the pension scheme changes are tailored to favour the rich.
And most importantly, there was no mention of increasing the wages of public sector workers. Paul Nowak, commenting on the budget, said: “There is no plan to get wages rising across the economy. Real wages will not return to 2008 levels until 2026. And the elephant in the room is the lack of funding for pay rises to recruit/retain public sector workers.”
In light of these actions, the message at the Cardiff rally was clear, echoed in PCS Union’s National Executive Committee member Marianne Owens’ speech to the rally: “We need to keep up the pressure. We need to keep up the strikes and stay on the streets until we win, until they actually give us a living wage and fix all of the other issues that we need them to fix.”
Michael Lambert, who works at the HMRC and is a member of the PCS Union, echoed this sentiment. “The world runs on money and unfortunately that’s the truth. And for the UK, it’s the money we collect that keeps the public services going,” he told voice.wales. “But the money that we’re collecting for the Exchequer, that’s going into the pockets of the rich and the Tory donors. Where it should be going is back to the society, to help those who really need it.”
He continued:
“Waged workers in the fifth richest economy of the world shouldn’t be suffering, they shouldn’t be having to choose between eating and heating,” he said, highlighting that 40,000 civil servants were forced to use the food bank last year. “We aren’t asking for a share or a commission, we are asking for the right for us to live.”
“It has a significant impact on your mental health, your family, just all aspects of your life.”
University staff were also on strike fighting for pensions and against casualisation of the workforce, increasing workloads, and gender and racial pay gaps. Dr Michael Munnik, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University said, “We’ve been at the pickets for five years, on and off. Now with so many workers from different sectors also striking and pushing against the conditions they’re in, there is a real pressure building up.”
The university’s treatment of contracted employees is one of the biggest issues that the UCU members are fighting for, said Dr Munnik. “People want some measure of security and it’s very difficult to get that in this field right now. So people who are starting out come out of university already with some debt from various degrees, and they’re just looking to tip the balance back. Unfortunately, they are not getting any assurances for that.”
Another lecturer at the School of Law and Politics of Cardiff University, Dr Lizzy Willmington spoke to voice.wales about the impact of casualisation. “Most people are lured in with the hope of open-ended full-time contracts. That’s what we are all after. But it’s really difficult to actually get one,” she said.
“People are coming to the end of their contracts and they don’t know if they’ll continue working or not, where they’ll be living, if they’ll be able to pay their mortgage. It has a significant impact on your mental health, your family, just all aspects of your life.”
The casualisation accusations have been raised by UCU against Cardiff University since 2020, and Dr Willmington says that it’s only gotten worse, with a number of staff working several hours for free across the university.
Dr Willmington recounted her experience as a PhD student teaching at Cardiff University when she was on an engagement agreement, with no sick pay, no holiday, and getting paid for 20 minutes to mark a 1000-word examination.
Shockingly, when the staff take ‘action short of strike’ (ASOS) by only working for their contracted hours, she said that universities around the country have threatened people with complete pay deductions. “There can’t be a clearer admission that the universities rely on free labour.”
Further, there are instances of appalling gender pay gaps according to Dr Willmington, with departments that predominantly employ more women, such as professional services having lower pay and precarious contracts, as well as there being significantly lesser women in higher profile roles. She said that even when it comes to promotion, gender division exists.
As summer approaches with no indication of employers being interested in valuing the workforce fairly, Dr Munnik feared that members could get burned out with no end in sight, and may wish to end the dispute by accepting the sub-par deals on offer. “As long as some of our members feel that it’s not going to solve their issues, we need to carry on,” he said.
Questions over strategy have also come to the fore as the unions desperately try to find ways to negotiate with disinterested government and employers. On Wednesday afternoon, many UCU members showed their frustration online after the union’s General Secretary, Jo Grady, put forward the idea of cancelling next week’s strike in order to consult on a pay offer of just 5% for most workers.
Similarly in the health sector, deals are being reached which could lock workers into below inflation pay deals of between 5% and 6% this year and next, and with some strike mandates not having been used at all.
And in the National Education Union (NEU) Cymru, teachers saw two strike days cancelled, including March 15, in order to consult on an offer that was similar to one that had already been overwhelmingly rejected.
There is fear among some union members that such moves could demoralise strikers and waste an appetite for action over this year’s pay awards.
Amidst these tense situations, Chair of Cardiff UCU Dr Renata Medeiros delivered a powerful message to the workers at the rally to not give up. “It’s exhausting and unfair. Some people might be wondering what is the point? What have we achieved? How long must this carry on? The answer is as long as needed… Because we cannot possibly imagine workers accepting less and less pay while we see the money piling in the pockets of the privileged few.”
Dr Willmington shared similar feelings. “We’re losing pay every day that we strike and during our cost of living crisis. So it is a significant decision and not made lightly. The employers are just waiting for us to get tired and run out of steam. We have to make sure that we don’t run out of steam. We have to make sure that we look after each other and ourselves and not give up.”
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