STRIKES have crippled the UK’s rail network impacting millions of commuters and travellers.
A pay dispute with Network Rail and some Department of Transport rail-operating companies has seen around 40,000 workers strike, with picket lines set up across London and in other cities.
The action by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has led to the cancellation of 80% of the UK’s train services, with further action set to be taken on June 23 and 25.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson attacked the “union barons” who will “add to people’s costs”, and Labour leader Keir Starmer drew criticism from within his own party after telling frontbenchers not to join workers on the picket lines.
However, the support for the strikers on the streets seems to be much stronger than at the top levels of the UK political parties.
Gordon Martin, the RMT’s Scotland organiser, told The National that the members of the public he’d spoken to had been “extremely” supportive of the strike action.
He said: “I’ve got to be honest, one or two people have been hostile, but the overwhelming majority of people I’ve spoken to this morning have been extremely supportive."
“Why are they supportive?" Martin (above) went on: "Because they are fellow workers. They’re workers in other industries. What many of them are saying to me is they wish they were in a union that would fight for them the way that we’re fighting for our members and our members are fighting for themselves.
“I would encourage the workers of Scotland, if you’re not in a trade union, to join it.”
A snap YouGov poll on June 21, the first day of the strikes, found that Scots were more likely to support the strikes than people elsewhere in the UK.
A total of 49% of people in Scotland said they either "strongly support" or "tend to support" the action, the highest of any part of the UK.
The National hit the streets of Glasgow – outside the city’s two main stations Central and Queen Street – to see how the public were perceiving the strikes:
