LONDON: Some 100,000 UK civil servants on Thursday voted to strike, in the latest industrial action to hit a country wracked by a cost-of-living crisis.
More than half of members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union working in 126 employer areas including in the Home Office, Department for Transport and the Department for Work and Pensions voted to strike, exceeding the 50 percent threshold needed to trigger a walkout.
“The government must look at the huge vote for strike action across swathes of the civil service and realize it can no longer treat its workers with contempt,” said PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka.
“Our members have spoken and if the government fails to listen to them, we’ll have no option than to launch a prolonged program of industrial action reaching into every corner of public life.
“Civil servants have willingly and diligently played a vital role in keeping the country running during the pandemic but enough is enough,” he added.
Union bosses are demanding a 10 percent pay rise to match the country’s high inflation rate.
The cost-of-living crisis is leading to widespread UK strikes, with train workers, legal staff, dockers and even nurses among those walking out.
100,000 civil servants latest to join UK strikes
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100,000 civil servants latest to join UK strikes
- "The government must look at the huge vote for strike action across swathes of the civil service," said PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka
- Union bosses are demanding a 10 percent pay rise to match the country's high inflation rate
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
