Irish Examiner view: Could such action happen here?

UK strikes

Striking members and supporters of the National Education Union on Whitehall, on a march from Portland Place to Westminster where they will hold a rally against the Government's controversial plans for a new law on minimum service levels during strikes. Picture: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

A massive strike is underway in Britain, or more accurately a series of strikes, involving over half a million people from the teaching sector to the railways and the health services and beyond. 

It is the biggest strike in a decade across the water, where large-scale industrial action has often had an ideological element, from the general strike of 1926 all the way through to the miners’ strike of 1984/85.