Public sector strikes 1: The Winter of Discontent, austerity-era pay freezes, Christian socialist solidarity, and continuity of patient care

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The UK is currently gripped by a wave of strikes from public sector employees – nurses, teachers, postal workers, train drivers, paramedics, and soon junior doctors too. But this raises complex ethical questions. Few Christians would deny it is legitimate for private employees to withhold their labour in order to demand better pay or conditions, but it is not the governmental employers who will suffer in public sector strikes but patients, students and ordinary citizens. In this first part of our conversation we discuss the origin of striking as a tactic, the history of how British law does or does not permit certain professions to go on strike, and the complexities of healthcare workers in particular walking off the ward, while maintaining (or not) their legal duty of caring for vulnerable patients.
Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Released on 1 Mar 2023

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