British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is planning to introduce anti-strike laws to protect lives and livelihoods, the Daily Mail reported on Thursday (15).
In an interview to the newspaper, Sunak said he hopes that union leaders can see that it is not right to cause disruptions to many people, particularly at Christmas time.
"But I'm prepared to introduce new legislation next year to protect people's lives and minimise the disruption on their livelihoods. And that's something we are working on at pace," Sunak told Daily Mail.
The British government held an emergency response meeting on Monday to discuss contingency planning, including the use of the military and civil servants to cover for striking workers, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson said.
Britain is set to face a wave of strikes over the coming weeks with nurses, rail staff and border force officials among those staging strikes as part of the biggest wave of industrial action to hit the country in decades.
"This is more focused on the sort of mitigations for this week and contingency planning," the prime minister's spokesperson said.
"As well as military personnel, civil servants are being trained to provide services and the government is working very closely with a number of industries involved."
(Reuters)
Damian Talbot