Future industrial action ‘will be even bigger’ if ministers do not act, union boss warns – as hundreds of thousands of workers walk out

Published

3 years ago

February 1, 2023

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A union leader has warned if the dispute over workers’ pay is not resolved, further industrial action “will be even bigger” and strikes will continue “right through the summer”.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of The Public and Commercial Services Union – one of the largest unions in the UK – told Sky News ministers should be aware that “the amount of people taking or voting for action is going to grow”.

“It’s not feasible that they can sit back with this unprecedented amount of industrial action growing because it’s half a million today,” he told Kay Burley.

Largest strikes in more than a decade underway – politics latest

“Next week, we have paramedics and we have nurses. There will be the firefighters we know who have now voted for strike action.

“So the amount of people taking or voting for action is going to grow – and I don’t believe the government will find it can get away with putting its head down while all this disruption takes place.

“And I think they’ll be forced to take a much more realistic attitude.

“But if they refuse, we are planning for our campaign to continue right through the summer with both long-term, sustained, targeted strikes – but also mass actions like today.

“And I think we will see if there is another one, it will be even bigger than the one today.”

Mr Serwotka added there is “a crisis of in-work poverty” – and claimed that 40,000 civil servants are using food banks.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt of being “missing in action” as hundreds of thousands of workers strike in the biggest day of industrial action for more than a decade.

General secretary of the TUC Paul Nowak told Sky News the government is “playing a little bit fast and loose with the British public” in suggesting that issues around workload, recruitment and retention can be addressed without talking about pay at the same time.

“They’re absolutely connected,” he said.

“And really the government needs to sit down. As I say, the prime minister and the chancellor come to the table, find some new money.”

Mr Nowak added: “I think last time I was on your programme two or three weeks ago, I said that we wanted to sit down with the chancellor and the PM to talk about what could be done in terms of fair pay settlements, new money on the table.

“We haven’t had a response.”

He continued: “I’m an optimist and I’m a negotiator, and I hope that the government will listen and will come to the table.”

Teachers in England and Wales who are members of the National Education Union (NEU) are staging walkouts today – which the union estimates will affect 23,000 schools.

Data from the NEU suggest 85% of schools across both nations will be fully or partially closed, leaving some parents with no choice but to take leave from work or arrange childcare.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan admitted to Sky News that the government “don’t know” the exact number of schools that have closed their gates but will be publishing that information “this afternoon”.

“We have done a survey which a lot of heads responded to, so that gives us some idea,” she said, adding that “the majority of schools would be open”.

Ms Keegan added that it would be “irresponsible” to offer pay rises in line with inflation.

Train drivers from the RMT and Aslef unions are also staging another strike as a long-running dispute over pay and conditions rumbles on – with university lecturers and bus drivers taking action too.

About 123 government departments are set to be disrupted by industrial action as well.

Protests are being held across the country against the government’s controversial plans for a new law on minimum service levels during strikes.

Downing Street conceded that today’s mass strike action will be “very difficult” for the public.

A Number 10 spokesperson said: “We regret the decision taken by multiple unions to strike as we greatly value the work of their members.

“We want open and honest dialogue about pay.

“Secretaries of state continue to have constructive meetings with their union counterparts, representing a positive step towards increasing dialogue and finding common ground.

“We also want to discuss non-pay concerns including conditions and workload.

“We cannot chase the tail of inflation. Increasing all public sector pay would cost £28bn – equivalent to £1,000 for every household.”

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More strikes are expected next week and will be dominated by NHS staff, with both nurses and ambulance workers planning action.

NHS consultants in England are also preparing for possible strike action.

And the following week will see Border Force officers at four ports strike over four days in the February half-term.

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.