No plan, no exit strategy: the UK government is losing face on strikes – and millions of votes
-While local pay bodies are settling with striking workers, Tory ministers are foolishly refusing to back down, and will pay the price

没有计划，没有退出战略：英国政府在罢工和数百万选票上颜面尽失
——当地方工资机构与罢工工人达成和解时，保守党大臣们却愚蠢地拒绝让步，并将为此付出代价


(Nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London strike over pay and conditions on 6 February.)

（2月6日，伦敦圣托马斯医院的护士因工资和工作条件问题举行罢工。）
新闻：

This is deeply embarrassing. Today the Fire Brigades unx called off its planned strikes after being offered 7% for this year backdated, plus 5% next year, by the National Joint Council that negotiates for local authorities. Its members have yet to agree, but council workers settled for a similar deal because local authorities jointly are free to make their own sensible settlements. Wales and Scotland are also in the process of settling with their health workers. That leaves those in charge of services in England left looking even more obstinate, unreasonable and ideologically fixated.

这真是太尴尬了。今天，消防工会取消了计划中的罢工，因为国家联合委员会为地方当局谈判，提供了今年之前的7%的工资，明年再加上5%的工资。委员会成员尚未同意，但委员会工作人员达成了类似的协议，因为地方当局可以共同自由地制定自己明智的解决方案。威尔士和苏格兰也在与他们的卫生工作者和解。这使得那些在英国负责服务的当权者们看起来更加固执、不可理喻，并且在意识形态上更加固执。

The GMB’s public services national secretary, Rachel Harrison, yesterday morning told me that the offer to the fire brigades was “massive” and said that if her ambulance workers and other strikers were offered that, “we’d definitely suspend action and call it off immediately”. Members would have to decide, but the view around the unxs yesterday was that a similar deal would settle these strikes.

英国工会组织的公共服务国家秘书瑞秋·哈里森昨天早上告诉我，给消防队的提议是“巨大的（让步）”，并说如果她的救护车工人和其他罢工者也得到这样的提议，“我们肯定会暂停行动，立即取消”。工会成员必须做出决定，但昨日工会内部的看法是，类似的协议将解决这些罢工。

The government hoped strikers would be weakening by now. Ministers assumed that low-paid public workers, some already using food banks, would surely be hurting from the many days’ pay struck off their payslips by now. A new payslip system in the NHS deliberately highlights their strike day deductions.

政府希望罢工的力量会减弱。大臣们认为，低收入的公务员（其中一些已经在使用食品银行）肯定会因为他们的工资单上扣除了许多天的工资而受到伤害。英国国家医疗服务体系的一项新工资单系统特意突出了罢工日扣除的部分。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


They also hoped that by now the public would have turned against strikers. Surely the resolute prime minister and chancellor would bask in a little 1980s Thatcher glory for their firm stance against “militants”? But that’s not how things are working out, not at all. That leaves the government with no plan and no ladder to climb down from their adamant stand.

他们还希望，到目前为止，公众会转而反对罢工者。坚定的首相和财政大臣肯定会因为他们对“激进分子”的坚定立场而沾沾上世纪80年代撒切尔夫人的光环吧？但事情不是这样发展的，完全不是。这让政府没有计划，也没有梯子可以从他们坚定的立场上爬下台。

NHS employers have made their views known, say the unxs: the confrontational strikes (minimum service levels) bill is an affront to local managers, who have worked well with their staff to ensure emergency cover during strikes. Ambulance delays have been fewer on strike days, as all the shifts are there on the picket line, and if a category 1 or 2 call comes in, more staff than usual are available to answer it. “Responders got there quicker, discharged patients into A&E quicker and there were fewer ambulance queues outside hospitals,” Harrison says. The bill allows politicians in the Department of Health to specify, by name and job, all those they can ban from striking, instead of leaving it for local managers to arrange with unxs, a fundamental breach of the right to strike.

英国国民健康保险制度的雇主们已经表明了他们的观点，工会说：对抗性罢工（将服务水平降至最低）法案是对当地管理者的一种侮辱，因为他们与员工们合作得很好，以确保罢工期间的紧急保障。在罢工日，救护车的延误减少了，因为所有的班次都在警戒线上，如果有1或2类电话打进来，有比平时更多的工作人员接听。哈里森说：“急救人员更快地到达那里，让病人更快地出院，医院外面的救护车队列也更少。”该法案允许卫生部的政客们通过姓名和职业来指定所有他们可以禁止罢工的人，而不是让地方管理人员与工会进行安排，这从根本上侵犯了罢工权。

The outrage caused by Grant Shapps’ claim last Sunday that ambulance staff were putting lives at risk by “refusing” to provide information on where they were striking, creating a “postcode lottery” for people having heart attacks, hardened the determination of strikers. “A blatant lie,” says Harrison.

格兰特·沙普斯上周日声称，救护车工作人员“拒绝”提供他们罢工地点的信息，为心脏病患者制造了一种“摸彩票”，从而将生命置于危险之中，这引起了人们的愤怒，这坚定了罢工者的决心。“这是公然的谎言，”哈里森说。

What Shapps and the government prefer not to draw attention to is the average 1,000 extra (non-Covid) deaths a week, for fear of exposing the effect of the underfunding of the NHS and social and community care for more than a decade.

沙普斯和政府不愿引起人们注意的是，平均每周新增1000例（非新冠肺炎）死亡病例，因为他们担心这会暴露出10多年来国家医疗体系以及社会和社区护理资金不足的影响。

Instead of fading away, more are joining the strikes: on Wednesday, the East of England ambulance service trust was the last to vote to join. On budget day, 15 March, another 100,000 civil servants are coming out, along with 30,000 from HMRC – presumably losing the state sizeable sums for every day they are not collecting taxes. unxs are balloting and renewing their ballot mandates, with soaring inquiries by the public to the TUC about joining.

更多的人非但没有退出罢工，反而加入了罢工：周三，英格兰东部救护服务公立医院是最后一个投票加入罢工的。在3月15日的预算日，另外10万名公务员将站出来，还有3万名来自英国税务海关总署的人员——估计他们每一天不收税，就会损失国家一大笔钱。随着公众向英国劳工联合会询问加入罢工问题的人数激增，工会正在投票并更新他们的投票授权。

unxs are infuriated by ministers, including the prime minister, who are claiming their “doors are open” when absolutely no negotiations are happening. Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, says this cabinet doesn’t understand negotiation: in public, ministers say they will talk to him – but no talks happen. “It will end, as all disputes do, around the table with an agreement.”

工会被包括首相在内的大臣们激怒了，他们在完全没有谈判的情况下却声称他们的“大门是敞开的”。英国职工大会秘书长保罗·诺瓦克说，这个内阁不懂谈判：在公开场合，大臣们说他们将与他谈判——但谈判没有发生。“就像所有的争端一样，最终要在谈判桌上达成协议。”

“They misjudged the public mood,” Nowak says. Repeating the mantra that it would be inflationary to give an inch to public workers only influences a third of voters, according to TUC focus groups. That’s because it’s not true, says Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies: “A public sector pay rise is not in itself inflationary” as, unlike in the private sector, there are no prices to rise. And the private sector has seen wages rise far faster than for public servants. He regards the sums required to settle as relatively modest: “Each 1% on the public pay bill costs £2.5bn.” Meanwhile, the unx leaders I spoke to said the spectacle of Shell and BP’s grotesque profits had also strengthened strikers’ resolve.

“他们误判了公众的情绪，”诺瓦克说。根据英国劳工联合会的焦点小组，重复“给公共部门员工让步会导致通货膨胀”的口号只影响了三分之一的选民。财政研究所所长保罗·约翰逊表示，这是因为事实并非如此：“公共部门加薪本身并不会引发通胀”，因为与私营部门不同，公共部门没有物价上涨的空间。私营部门的工资增长远远快于公共部门。他认为解决问题所需的金额相对适中：“公共薪酬账单中每1%的支出就需要25亿英镑。”与此同时，与我交谈过的工会领导人表示，壳牌和英国石油巨额利润的景象也增强了罢工者的决心。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The longer the government delays an inevitable settlement, the longer NHS waiting lists will grow, and Rishi Sunak will struggle to meet his pledge to cut them by the next election. The plan may be to wait until April and try to hide a climbdown in a fudged deal for next year that will in fact include pay, backdated for this year. But this climbdown will be more embarrassing the longer they delay.

政府拖延解决不可避免的问题的时间越长，国民保健服务的等候名单就会越长，而里什·苏纳克将难以兑现他在下次选举前削减等候名单的承诺。该计划可能会等到4月份，并试图在明年的一份敷衍的协议中隐藏自己的让步，事实上，该协议将包括回溯到今年的薪酬。但他们拖延得越久，这种让步就越令人尴尬。

Meanwhile the Telegraph has published a large poll of 28,000 voters, presumably designed to terrify the living daylights out of the Tories. It finds Labour would win an unthinkable 509 seats, the SNP would be the official opposition with 50, Tories would be third with just 45, and almost every Tory you’ve heard of would be swept away. The Electoral Calculus poll of polls has Labour on 47.5% and the Tories on 26.3%. There’s a way to go yet to an election, but this does suggest that provoking strikes and revoking the right to strike has been a gamechanger with voters.

与此同时，《每日电讯报》公布了一项有28000名选民参加的大型民意调查，可能是为了吓唬保守党。调查发现，工党将赢得不可思议的509个席位，苏格兰民族党将以50个席位成为正式反对党，保守党将以45个席位排名第三，几乎所有你听说过的保守党都将被淘汰。“选举计算”民意调查显示，工党支持率为47.5%，保守党支持率为26.3%。距离选举还有一段路要走，但这确实表明，引发罢工和取消罢工权利已经改变了选民的游戏规则。