Strike brings Northern Ireland to a standstill

 

UNISON strikers with placards outside St Patrick's High School in Keady Northern Ireland

On strike with a message in Keady, County Armagh

 

Northern Ireland ground to a standstill last Friday (13 March) as public service workers took strike action across all main services including public transport.

The action was in response to the deepest budget cuts and job loss ever proposed.

UNISON members in health, social services and education stopped work from midnight and the first picket lines formed at Belfast’s Mater Hospital as the night shift walked out.

In what has been described as the largest strike in Northern Ireland for more than a decade, schools closed, bus and rail services stopped, hospitals, social services and social care reduced to emergency cover, all but emergency outpatient services and elective surgery was cancelled and the majority of government functions stopped across the civil service.

UNISON, NIPSA, INTO, GMB and UNITE all took strike action. 

Private sector workers such as those in CWU and USDAW took annual leave or used their own time to join picket lines and marches.

By lunchtime, it was estimate that over 45,000 workers marched and rallied in their local towns and cities. UNISON strike leaders addressed all rallies. 

In Belfast, UNISON  branches led health and education members in feeder marches from the main hospitals and were joined by masses of strikers at Belfast City Hall.

Addressing the Belfast rally, UNISON regional secretary Patricia McKeown asked “How did our small place become a threat to global capitalism? 

“The answer is simple,” she said. “The enemies of the people know that we still have a welfare state. The people still own our buses, trains and water. Our NHS is still intact.

“The reason we still have services that enhance people’s lives is because of you – the public service workers who have fought for them for decades.

“Now they face their greatest threat.”

Ms McKeown added that “the spotlight now moves to the culprits who are responsible for this growing crisis:

  • “the UK government for cynically using our political crisis to slash the block grant, impose ‘structural adjustment’ and attack our welfare state;
  • “our own government for producing a devastating set of cuts in response;
  • “those at the top of public services for producing cuts which put people at permanent risk.”

 

Noting that confidence in the political system is at an all-time low, Ms McKeown warned politicians that if they “wish to restore confidence in a system that could work, if they really had the best interests of the people at heart, then now is the time to reverse the damaging decisions.”

Ambulance workers were scheduled to join the strike but at the 11th hour, the Northern Ireland  Ambulance service declared a “major incident” across the whole of Northern Ireland.

UNISON’s response, “and that of the majority of people”, said Ms McKeown, was that a “cynical strike breaking move would not be tolerated”.

The employer’s actions dominated much of the press on the day and an eve-of-strike poll conducted by the largest newspaper in Northern Ireland, reported 85% public support for the strike. 

UNISON members are now considering the next form of action to save jobs and services.