Unions have “a duty to coordinate” their strikes to save low-paid workers from going to food banks, the RMT boss says, ahead of a wave of pre-Christmas walkouts.
Nurses, ambulance drivers, post workers, bus drivers and driving examiners are set to join rail workers in industrial action, in what has been dubbed a “general strike” in all but name.
Ministers have condemned the “Christmas misery” ahead”, again threatening tougher laws to require minimum services are maintained on public services.
But Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT rail union, said unions working more closely together were simply responding to “a general attack by the employers and by the government”.
It comes as schools minister Nick Gibb told the RMT rail union not to “hold the country to ransom” as they prepare strikes in the run-up to Christmas.
RMT said they will walk out from 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on 27 December and will press ahead with two 48-hour strikes next week.
