after a walk out at bt. here s how the union praised that agreement to its members. months of but such victories come at a cost. the general public has faced months of disruption, with unions targeting the busiest periods to strike and co ordinating their action with other unions. border force staff at the uk 5 l bu5ie5t airport5 announce eight days of strike action. this is a country right now where receiving a letter, catching a train, getting a driving test, even being collected by an ambulance or seeing a nurse might not happen. 124 different government departments, people who work in job centres, in tax office5, - in the department for transport, culture, in museums and galleries.
there has to be a reality check amongst the trade union colleagues about where that money would have to come from. no one s taking it lightly but it s, kind of, the only way now we feel like we re going to be heard. if the union leaders - continue to be unreasonable, then it is my duty to take action. i m not the grinch. i m a trade union official and i m determined to get a deal. the biggest strikes in a generation are happening even though fewer people are in unions. membership peaked in the late 1970s, when 13 million people were members. since then, it s declined to about 6.7 million people about a quarter of the workforce. it s mostly in the private sector that union membership has fallen, but unions are still strong and able to flex their muscles elsewhere.
strikes, increasingly, are largely concentrated in the public sector or in the formerly public sector. so privatised utilities, for example. and we re seeing it in royal mail and we re seeing it, of course, the railways were privatised. trade unions are recognised for bargaining over pay and conditions in the public sector. that hasn t really gone away. it s been under challenge. it s got more fragmented but it still holds up. unions say strikes are a last resort and are usually called when negotiations break down. workers, when they vote to strike, first have to weigh up the alternatives. people have to see a serious injustice in the workplace and then, if they re in a unionised workplace, they think that the union can actually do something about it. and also that they think,
then they ve got to i increase productivity. money doesn t come from nowhere. it has to be funded, ultimately, by the industry itself. the research shows us that pay strikes tend to be effective, not necessarily in getting all that s claimed, but certainly in achieving a gain. it helps if you re in an occupation which isn t easily substitutable. an example of that is the barristers strike. you can t suddenly bring in a whole load of replacement barristers to substitute for that job. barristers won one of the largest pay settlements of 2022, calling off their strike in november after the government offered a 15% increase in their fees. and there was a pay deal worth up to 16% for members of the cwu union
and there was a pay deal worth up to 16% for members of the cwu union after a walk out at bt. here s how the union praised that agreement to its members. but such victories come at a cost. the general public has faced months of disruption, with unions targeting the busiest periods to strike and co ordinating their action with other unions. border force staff at the uk 5 l bu5ie5t airport5 announce eight days of strike action. this is a country right now where receiving a letter, catching a train, getting a driving test, even being collected by an ambulance or seeing a nurse might not happen. 124 different government departments, people who work in job