Music and entertainment world share solidarity with UK worker strikes

15 December, 2022

strikes

Many across the music and entertainment world are sharing their support today (December 15) as thousands of workers across the UK go on strike.

Thursday sees members of The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) go on strike for the first time in the organisation’s 106-year history with demands for better pay. A second strike is due on December 20.

It follows a year of consistent strikes on the UK’s railway network, while Royal Mail staff have been undertaking a number of strikes recently around the traditionally busy Christmas period.

With today’s strikes the most high-profile in the UK in years, many in the entertainment world have taken to social media to share their support for the workers striking.

Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd tweeted: “The actual message of these strikes is that after 12 years this government cannot afford to pay its’ workers sufficiently so that they can afford to heat their homes and eat. Everything else is just background noise. We need a competent government that can pay real living wages.”

He later added: “Seeing as this tweet is getting some traction, let me add this: The concept that ANY public sector worker should be paid so little we have to top their income up with Universal Credit is so poorly managed as to make anyone who is in charge of such a situation a laughing stock.”

The BBC’s Gary Lineker added: “Nurses are incredible people. They’ve cared for us in our moments of need. Here’s hoping we care for them in their moment of need.”

Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, laid out what kind of pay rise could drastically improve nurses’ lives, and that could be paid for with a miniscule increase in wealth tax.

See a range of messages below.

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