Striking teachers attend a march in central London on Wednesday. /Toby Melville/Reuters
Up to half a million teachers, civil servants, train drivers and university lecturers across the UK walked out over pay and conditions on Wednesday. The largest coordinated strike action in Britain in more than a decade has caused widespread disruption and has been dubbed 'Walkout Wednesday.'
Most UK schools were thought to be closed, along with the majority of rail services, with the military put on standby to help with border checks.
With inflation running at more than 10 percent - the highest level in four decades - the UK has seen a wave of strikes in recent months across different sectors, including health and transport workers, Amazon warehouse employees and Royal Mail postal staff.
Those striking are demanding above-inflation pay rises to cover rocketing food and energy bills that they say has left them stressed, feeling undervalued and struggling to make ends meet.
Teachers
About 300,000 teachers were thought to be on strike, the largest single group of workers involved. Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU - the UK's largest education union - said she expected 85 percent of schools to either fully or partially close on Wednesday, equating to around 18,000 schools.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told parliament teachers have been given the highest pay rise in 30 years, including 9 percent for newly qualified teachers and said "the strikes are wrong and we should be backing our school children."
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has ruled out making a double figure pay rise for teachers, who have had an effective pay cut of 12 per cent since last year, according to the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The NEU said the government offered its members a 5 percent pay rise, which it said equated to a pay cut. Bousted said teachers felt they had no choice but to strike as declining pay meant high numbers were leaving the profession, making it harder for those that remain.
"There has been over the last 12 years a really catastrophic long term decline in their pay," she said outside a school in south London.
Keegan retorted: "What we cannot do is give inflation-busting pay rises to one part of the workforce and make inflation worse for everybody. That's not an economically sensible thing to do."
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University staff
More than 70,000 staff at 150 universities represented by the University and College Union (UCU) are striking in a dispute over pay, saying they have had a pay rise worth 3 percent this year imposed following over a decade of below-inflation pay awards.
University lecturers will also go on strike from February, with Wednesday marking the first day of an escalating walkout that could total 18 days between February and March.
UCU General secretary Jo Grady insisted there is $49 billion of reserve funding that could be used to resolve workers' pay demands. She told Sky News: "Our employers themselves have said that $1.84 billion, would settle our dispute."
Demonstrators wave flags of the PCS trade union, representing government employees, while marching past the UK prime minister's residence. /Isabel Infantes/AFP
Government staff
More than 100,000 civil servants from the the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) were believed to have walked out in a dispute over pay and conditions.
The action was thought to have to hit around 120 Government departments services across England and Wales, including the departments for Transport, Education, Health and Home Office (Interior Ministry).
National Highways, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Office for National Statistics and the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency are among other impacted bodies.
Train drivers
Thousands of train drivers from the ASLEF and RMT unions staged the first of two days of walkouts this week after rejecting a pay offer, the latest in months of travel disruption caused by the long-running dispute over pay.
Train drivers will also walk out on Friday as affecting 28 of the rail operators that make up over 50% of the network.
What happens next?
Healthcare workers are also taking coordinated action on February 6 for the first time, in what is set to be the biggest day of action in the history of the state-funded National Health Service.
Unions say that thousands of ambulance workers in England and Wales, including paramedics, emergency care assistants and call handlers, will also strike on February 17, 20, and 22, with further days of action in March.
Tens of thousands of nurses in England will launch their third wave of action, walking out for 12 hours each on February 6 and 7. There are also protests planned against a new law to curb strikes in some sectors.
What's been the government response?
The government appears determined to face down the strikers, despite polls showing the majority of the public having sympathy with many of those affected, particularly health workers.
So far the economy has not taken a major hit from the industrial action with the cost of the strikes in the eight months to January estimated by consultancy firm the Centre for Economics and Business Research at about $2.09 billion, or about 0.1 percent of expected GDP.
But the strikes may be having a political impact on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government. His Conservative Party trail the opposition Labour Party by some 25 percentage points in polls, and surveys indicate the public think the government has handled the strikes badly.