Northern Ireland came to a near standstill Thursday after 100,000 public employees walked out in the country’s largest-ever strike in a long-running dispute over pay. Photo by Mark Marlow/EPA-EFE
Northern Ireland was brought to a standstill Thursday after 100,000 public employees walked out in the country’s largest-ever strike in a long-running dispute over pay.
The coordinated action by 16 unions representing 173,000 workers saw schools and colleges close, all trains and buses stop running, snow-covered roads left unplowed, medical appointments canceled and government offices shuttered. Advertisement
Public sector pay in Northern Ireland has fallen behind England, Scotland and Wales since 2021 due to high inflation, topping 11% at one point, and a budget crisis caused by the lack of functioning government in the province, which is suspended due to a row over post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Repeated wages settlements have been at below-inflation levels and Office for National Statistics data show real terms pay fell 11% in the two years to April but a 20-month boycott of the Stormont Assembly by the Democratic Unionist Party means $4.2 billion in funding remains untouched in Westminster treasury coffers.
Starting annual pay for a teacher in Northern Ireland at $30,453, is almost $8,000 less than their colleagues in England, according to the NASUWT which represents 300,000 teachers across Britain. Advertisement
“The situation regarding pay for our members simply cannot be allowed to continue. Teachers have not had a pay increase for three years while Further Education lecturer pay is even worse again. They are seeing housing, food, transport and fuel costs continue to rise while their pay remains the same,” said NASUWT General Secretary Patrick Roach.
“Our members cannot and must not be in a position where they must take industrial action to get the same basic rates of pay as colleagues elsewhere in the U.K.”
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris insists that pay is a power reserved for the devolved administration and that his hands are tied until Stormont Assembly is restored in a gambit seen as a bid to force the DUP to cave.
Heaton-Harris was able to persuade Members of the Legislative Assembly to return to Stormont on Wednesday for the first time since a May 2022 election but the MLAs failed to elect a new speaker in time for a midnight Thursday deadline that will trigger fresh elections.
Unions accused the minister of failing the people of Northern Ireland.
“The trade union movement have won the popular argument, as witnessed by the support we have seen from women’s groups, the voluntary sector, students’ unions, the 50 chief executives in the public sector, the Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable and the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the public at large,” said Irish Congress of Trade Unions assistant general-secretary Gerry Murphy. Advertisement
“It only remains for Chris Heaton-Harris to do the decent thing and release the funds.”
