Rise in strike action

More days of work were lost to industrial action in the UK last year than at any time since 1990, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown.

ONS data revealed that 1.39 million working days were lost in 2011, up from 365,000 in 2010. There were 140 individual stoppages against 92 in 2010.

The day of action over public sector pensions on 30 November, when 964,000 working days were lost, accounted for the lion’s share of the total.

The 1.28 million days lost in total in the public sector last year accounted for 92% of the overall total, and the figure was more than four times the number of days lost in 2010.

The number of days lost in the private sector doubled to 111,000 in 54 stoppages. It was the highest number of days lost in the sector since 1994.

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/february-2012/index.html