Strikes hitting us at Christmas are mean and spiteful

LET ME make my position clear. I’m a lifelong trade unionist and I believe that one of the freedoms in any democracy is the right of workers to withdraw their labour when reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.

- David Blunkett

I use the word “exhausted” because that is how so many of us feel at the moment. Those taking industrial action lose money – which they can ill afford to do, not least in the run-up to Christmas.

Those using services find themselves left high and dry, or worse, when it comes to the NHS.

Frankly, no one is gaining and everyone’s losing.

Every worker, including those taking action, are consumers, passengers, travellers, and, of course, patients. At a time when everyone, except the very well off, is feeling the pinch – coping with eye-watering inflation, the fear of a cold Christmas, and with seven million people on the NHS waiting list – we need to escape this vicious circle.

Older readers will remember the winter of discontent in 1978-79 and will, like me, want to avoid what happened then at all costs.

As will the leadership of my party. The misery the public faces can so easily turn from frustration with the Government’s intransigence and rebound on Labour.

Paradoxically, much of the present and forthcoming action is being taken by unions such as the RCN, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the RMT that do not support Labour.