On Jan. 9, trade unions met with the government to push for better pay amid a cost-of-living crisis, but that did not improve the situation.

With thousands of school classrooms closed, train services disrupted, and delays anticipated at airports, the United Kingdom witnessed one of the biggest nation-wide strikes in over a decade this past Feb. 1. According to the Trades Union Congress, a federation of unions, more than 500,000 people went on strike, including but not limited to teachers, university employees, government employees, border guards, train drivers, coast guard members, airport passport booth workers, museum employees, and London bus drivers. The British Museum was also closed due to this strike.

A total of 23,000 schools were impacted on Feb. 1, the National Education Union (NEU) reported, with 85 percent of them entirely or partially closed.

In the upcoming days and weeks, other walkouts, including those by nurses and ambulance personnel, are planned.

British citizens' daily routines have been disturbed by strikes for months as a contentious dispute over wages and working conditions continues between unions and the government. The unions' protest efforts intensified with the widespread, simultaneous Feb. 1 strikes.

The last time a similar situation occurred in the UK was in 2011, when well over one million public sector employees went on strike for one day over pension issues. Union leaders claim that despite some salary increases, such as a five percent offer the government made to teachers, the UK's mild drop in the inflation rate has put a large number of public sector employees into financial hardship because their earnings have not kept up. Teachers, health professionals, and many other participants in other occupations claim that their pay has decreased in real terms over the past ten years, and the rise in living expenses that started last year has worsened the situation.

When accounting for inflation, the average public sector employee now makes 250 USD less per month than they did in 2010, according to the Trades Union Congress.

The UK's inflation rate is at 10.5 percent, the highest level in 40 years, due to rapidly rising food and energy prices. Although some anticipate a slower price growth this year, the economic prognosis for Britain is still bleak. The UK’s economy, according to the International Monetary Fund, will be the only major economy to contract this year, performing even worse than sanctions-hit Russia.

In a statement to Coventry Telegraph, Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said that "the government has been underfunding our schools and underpaying the people who work in them…There are primary schools where special needs aides are hard to find because they choose to work in supermarkets instead because the pay is greater. People are acting because of that.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described teacher strikes as wrong. It is worth noting that his administration has given teachers the greatest wage boost in 30 years. He declared, “Our children’s education is precious, and they deserve to be in school today."