LONDON (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of municipal workers will stage two more 24-hour strikes over the next two months unless employers improve their pay offer, their unions announced Friday.þþThe workers -- ranging from street sweepers to librarians to architects -- held a one-day strike on Wednesday, closing schools, libraries and recreation centers in their first national walkout in more than two decades.þþWithin hours of that strike, subway workers shut down London's Tube for 24 hours in a dispute over government plans for privatizing the system.þþThe local government employees -- many of them low-paid -- are seeking a 6 percent pay increase, and have rejected the employers' offer of a 3 percent raise. Local authorities say they cannot afford to give more.þþThree unions representing 1.2 million workers said they would walk out again on Aug. 14, and again in September. They also planned a campaign of ``selective industrial action.''þþ``In the face of the employers' refusal to reopen talks we are escalating our campaign of industrial action,'' said Heather Wakefield, a national official at the white-collar union Unison.þþThe unions said the strikes could be averted if local authorities returned to the negotiating table.þþ``We stand ready to talk but there can be no progress unless the employers abandon 3 percent in favor of a better deal, especially for the lowest paid workers,'' said Jack Dromey, national organizer with the Transport and General Workers' Union.þþThe unions said 750,000 people joined Wednesday's walkout, which caused only minor inconvenience to most Britons, although hundreds of schools were closed as janitors, cafeteria staff and teaching assistants walked out.þþBritain's last national public sector strike was in 1978-79, during what became known as the ``Winter of Discontent.''þþThat unrest, which saw uncollected garbage pile up in the streets and corpses go unburied, helped topple the Labor Party government of James Callaghan and elect Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.þ
Source: NY Times
