Friday 16 December 2016

Christmas Of Discontent

With commuters on rail services facing yet another day of strikes,  Post Office workers pushing ahead with walkouts and now airport staff going on strike and grounding planes, could be a bad time to travel or post a letter.
As the country continues to struggle after almost a decade of austerity, the level of industrial unrest is unsurprisingly on the rise.
The number of working days lost to strikes in the first 10 months of 2016 has already passed last year's total, with junior doctors, teachers and Government employees withholding their labour during the year.       
While the public are mostly behind strikers, walkouts over Christmas could have a negative effect on any sympathy the strikers have, particularly in sectors like travel and mail delivery where people rely on them more than usual at this time of year.
Choosing to strike when demand is at its height is a very useful bargaining tool but it has to be played the right way to save it turning into a Public Relations disaster and both sides, the employees and employers, are relying on the other taking the blame for the disruption.
At the moment the public are backing the workers but overplay their hands and the mood can very quickly change.

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