There’s more to the recent wave of strike action than just unions versus bosses

Employers need to find ways of making jobs more satisfying, as well as paying people more, and working people have to help by improving their own productivity, writes Hamish McRae

This is not just a British phenomenon. There are many other groups of workers around the world taking or planning similar action (PA)

Suddenly there is a return to the labour unrest of the 1970s. The rail and Tube strikes and the eight-day one by dock workers at Felixstowe are an echo of those earlier disputes, for the railways and the docks experienced unrest then.

They may be joined by GPs, who are protesting against having to offer weekend appointments, also an echo for in 1975 it was junior doctors and consultants that forced the Labour government to abandon its plans to stop their taking on private patients. Another professional group, barristers, are currently causing disruption and may go on all-out strike in September.

This is not just a British phenomenon. There are many other groups of workers around the world taking or planning similar action: easyJet pilots in Spain, mental health workers in California, the US railroads (in which Joe Biden has intervened to try to head off a nationwide strike), and so on. The UK may be experiencing more unrest than most other countries at the moment, but the pressures are global. Why?