Editing Winter of Discontent (section)

==Public sector employees==

Bitter winter weather returned after a week of milder temperatures on 22 January. [[Freezing rain]] began falling across England at noon; by midnight temperatures dropped further and it turned to snow, which continued falling into the next day. Once again roads were impassable in the south; in the north and at higher elevations areas that had not yet recovered from the storm three weeks prior were newly afflicted.<ref name="The British and their weather" />

A month earlier the public sector unions had set that day as the biggest individual day of strike action since the [[General Strike of 1926]],<ref name="Lopez 121-23">{{harvp|López|2014|pages=121–123}}</ref> and many workers stayed out indefinitely afterwards. With many in the private sector having achieved substantial rises, the public sector unions became increasingly concerned to keep pace in terms of pay. The government had already announced a slight weakening of the policy on 16 January, which gave the unions cause for hope that they might win and use free collective bargaining. Train drivers belonging to [[ASLEF]] and the [[National Union of Railwaymen]] had already begun a series of 24-hour strikes, and the [[Royal College of Nursing]] conference on 18 January decided to ask that the pay of nurses be increased to the same level in real terms as 1974, which would mean a 25 per cent average rise. The public sector unions labelled the date the "Day of Action", in which they held a 24-hour strike and marched to demand a £60 per week minimum wage. It would later be recalled as "Misery Monday" by the media.<ref name="Misery Monday" />

With the succession of strikes having been called and then won, many groups of workers began to take unofficial action – often without the consent or support of the union leaderships. Ambulance drivers began to take strike action in mid-January, and in parts of the country (London, West Midlands, [[Cardiff]], [[Glasgow]] and the west of Scotland) their action included refusing to attend 999 emergency calls. In these areas, the Army was drafted in to provide a skeleton service. Ancillary hospital staff also went on strike.<ref name=bbc/> On 30 January, the [[Secretary of State for Social Services]] [[David Ennals]] announced that 1,100 of 2,300 [[NHS]] hospitals were only treating emergencies, that practically no ambulance service was operating normally, and that the ancillary health service workers were deciding which cases merited treatment. The media reported with scorn that [[cancer]] patients were being prevented from getting essential treatment.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

===Gravediggers' strike===

At a strike committee meeting in the [[Liverpool]] area earlier in January, it was reported that although local [[binmen]] were supportive of the strike, they did not want to be the first to do so as they had always been. The committee then asked Ian Lowes, [[convener]] for the [[General and Municipal Workers' Union]] (GMWU) local, to have the gravediggers and [[crematorium]] workers he represented take the lead instead. He accepted, as long as the other unions followed; and the GMWU's national executive approved the strike.<ref name="Lopez 121-23" />

Those unions had never gone on strike before, Lowes recalled in 2006, and he had not expected that permission to be granted. "I knew how the press was going to latch on to it," he said, "and they totally underestimated the venom that headed our way." [[Larry Whitty]], an executive official with the union, also agreed later that it had been a mistake to approve the strike.<ref name="Lopez 121-23" /> The GMWU at the time was also known as the most conservative and least militant of the public employee unions; frequently it had used its influence within the Labour Party to frustrate left-wing challenges to the leadership, and its officials rarely faced contested elections for their positions. Faced with the growing threat from the [[National Union of Public Employees]] (NUPE) and the [[Confederation of Health Service Employees]] (COHSE), both of which were growing more quickly, it was trying not to be what members of those unions called the '[[Scab labour|scab]] union'.<ref name="Lopez 117-18">{{harvp|López|2014|pages=117–118}}</ref>

The ensuing strike, in Liverpool and in [[Tameside]] near [[Manchester]], was later frequently referred to by Conservative politicians.<ref>{{harvp|Moore|2014|page=399}}</ref> With 80 gravediggers being on strike, [[Liverpool City Council]] hired a factory in [[Speke]] to store the corpses until they could be buried. The Department of Environment noted that there were 150 bodies stored at the factory at one point, with 25 more added every day. The reports of unburied bodies caused concern with the public.<ref name="Travis">{{cite news |last=Travis |first=Alan |title=National archives: Fear of fights at cemetery gates during 1979 winter of discontent|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/30/liverpool-gravedigger-strikes|newspaper=The Guardian|date=30 December 2009}}</ref> On 1 February a persistent journalist asked the Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool, Dr Duncan Bolton, what would be done if the strike continued for months, Bolton speculated that [[burial at sea]] would be considered. Although his response was hypothetical, in the circumstances it caused great alarm. Other alternatives were considered, including allowing the bereaved to dig their own funeral's graves, deploying troops, and engaging private contractors to inter the bodies. The main concerns were said to be aesthetic because bodies could be safely stored in heat-sealed bags for up to six weeks.<ref name="Travis"/> Bolton later reported being "horrified" by the sensationalised reportage of the strike in the mass media.<ref>{{cite journal |first=James |last=Thomas |title='Bound by History': The Winter of Discontent in British Politics 1979–2004 |journal=Media, Culture & Society |volume=29 |issue=2 |date=2007 |page=270|doi=10.1177/0163443707074257 |s2cid=145626459 }}</ref> The gravediggers eventually settled for a 14 per cent rise after a fortnight off the job.

In their later memoirs, Callaghan and Healey both blamed NUPE for letting the strike go on as long as it did, as would Conservatives. While the Tameside gravediggers had been members of that union, those in the Liverpool area were GMWU.<ref>{{harvp|López|2014|page=110}}</ref>

===Waste collectors===
With many collectors having been on strike since 22 January, local authorities began to run out of space for storing waste and used local parks under their control. The Conservative controlled [[Westminster City Council]] used [[Leicester Square]] in the heart of London's West End for piles of rubbish and, as the ''[[Evening Standard]]'' reported, this attracted [[rat]]s and the available food led to an increase in their numbers. The media nicknamed the area Fester Square.<ref name="Misery Monday" />

On 21 February, a settlement of the local authority workers' dispute was agreed, whereby workers got an 11 per cent rise, plus £1 per week, with the possibility of extra rises, should a pay comparability study recommend them. Some left-wing local authorities, among them the [[London Borough of Camden]], conceded the union demands in full (known as the "Camden surplus") and then saw an investigation by the [[Audit Commission (United Kingdom)|District Auditor]], which eventually ruled it a breach of the [[fiduciary duty]] owed to the ratepayers (local taxpayers) of the area and therefore illegal. Camden Borough councillors, among them [[Ken Livingstone]], avoided [[Surcharge (sanction on public servant)|surcharge]]. Livingstone was Leader of the [[Greater London Council]] at the time the decision not to impose a surcharge was made.