Royal Mail PLC (LSE:RMG) managers today voted heavily in favour of industrial action over pay and later BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) workers also agreed to go on strike later in the afternoon.
They are the latest in a growing list of companies and sectors facing industrial action.
Why this is happening is easy enough to spot - real wages are facing the biggest squeeze in two decades due to rising inflation, but will there be any impact on the companies themselves?
That will take longer to determine, but in the meantime here is a list of those companies and sectors affected.
Royal Mail
86% of 2,400 managers backed the vote, the union Unite said, while on Tuesday over 115,000 regular workers from the Communication Workers Union started deciding whether they themselves wanted to strike following a pay dispute.
The mail collector and deliverer’s share price fell 3.6% to 258.6p on Thursday afternoon but has plummeted over 40% since 25 January when the first murmurs of mass managerial sackings surfaced.
Telecoms
BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) learnt that members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents more than 40,000 staff at the former state telecoms company, also voted in favour of a walk-out.
Some 91.5% of CWU members in BT, 9,000 of whom are call centre workers, voted to strike against a real-terms pay cut.
If the action does take place, it will be the first national call centre workers’ strike in British history.
Around 30,000 Openreach engineers voted by 95.8% to strike, while a vote by EE workers fell short of passing anti-union law thresholds by only eight votes.
The ballot had been held in response to BT putting up salaries by £1,500 per year in April, which represents a 3-8% increase, depending on the employee’s salary, but workers claimed this was “incredibly low” in the fact of inflation.
Its shares fell over 3% since the news was announced on Wednesday.
Rail strikes
Just last week, over 40,000 rail workers walked out for three days in what was the biggest rail strike in three decades in a row over pay. Most tube workers participated too on the first day in a separate action.
Approximately half of all rail lines were closed entirely, with just over a fifth of journeys running compared to usual.
Airlines
As if soaring fuel prices weren’t enough to squeeze household budgets and patience, various airlines have announced large strikes during the peak summer holidays as travel chaos shows little sign of easing.
Over 700 mostly check-in staff at Heathrow Airport have already voted to strike in the summer holidays, which is expected to severely disrupt more families’ getaways.
Workers’ wages were slashed by 10% during the pandemic and their pay has remained at this level since. BA offered a one-off payment – equal to 10% of their salary – but the staff want the cut fully reversed.
The GMB and Unite unions have also been consulting engineers and call centre staff at Gatwick, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle on taking action.
Various strike talks at Britain’s biggest airline have been going on since the start of the year, with its share price taking a 35% hit in that period.
Onto the UK-listed budget airlines, Ryanair Holdings PLC (LSE:RYA) has already done or is expected to strike across several European countries.
Meanwhile, Spanish EasyJet PLC staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of action on many peak travel days this summer.
Both companies’ shares sunk over 20% in the last month as strike dates were confirmed.
Public Services
Two key teaching unions are considering balloting members over strike action if a significant pay increase, of 12%, is not offered.
Meanwhile, the leader of the UK’s biggest civil service union told ministers to expect “high levels of industrial action” if workers delivering public services are asked to accept more real terms pay cuts at a time of nearly double-digit inflation.
Barristers
Eight in 10 cases at The Old Bailey were disrupted this week by barristers walking out over a smaller-than-desired pay rise offer.
They rejected a proposed 15% pay rise in their fees for undertaking legal aid work, demanding at least 25%.
Further action has been scheduled to continue throughout July.
Confirmed industrial action and scheduled votes have been rampant throughout June, sparked by 40-year high inflation that has been eating away at workers’ real wages.
But strikes cause chaos and are making these times of economic uncertainty even more worrying for households, whose budgets are being squeezed further with every passing day.