Greece Outside In: Public sector staff are on strike because they have been left out of the recovery

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Public sector staff are on strike because they have been left out of the recovery

Employees in the private sector are benefiting from wage rises, but in the public services the spending cuts nightmare is scarcely halfway through

How typically British for the trades unions to get round to staging a strike against austerity measures when the economy is finally on the up. That will be the simplistic criticism on Thursday, when as many as 1 million public services workers are expected to stay off work in one of the biggest mass walkouts since the 1926 general strike.

At first glance it may look odd that the unions should be acting together now, having sat by and watched while their continental counterparts took angrily and frequently to the streets when austerity first bit: two general strikes in each of Spain and Portugal in 2012, five in each of Italy and Greece.