On the current strike wave

Abstract

Emerging from global economic shutdown in 2021, some of Britain’s largest employers embarked on radical restructuring of workers’ wages and conditions by exploiting the lack of protection for workers in UK legislation to impose ‘fire and rehire’ and wage cuts. As inflation and interest rates rose sharply, trade unions resisted attacks on their members’ living standards by organising the largest strike wave for over 30 years. The current strike wave has developed from defensive strikes against attacks on jobs and wages into a broad united front of organised labour across both private and public sectors. The political resistance of the organised working class poses the real question of who runs Britain.