Hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors and civil servants on strike today
It's the biggest single day of strike action for years
Several strikes are taking place today in a co-ordinated day of action which could see hundreds of thousands of people taking part and causing widespread disruption.
Schools, hospitals, universities, government departments and the London Underground will all face strikes as several trade unions have coordinated their action to happen on same day as the budget.
It will be one of the biggest single days of industrial action for years.
Who is going on strike today?
Workers taking action include civil servants, teachers, university staff, London Underground drivers and BBC journalists.
Teachers
The National Education Union have called two days of strike action in England and Wales on March 15th and 16th.
Teachers at schools and sixth-form colleges will join the strike. During the last strike on February 1st more than half of schools in England closed or partially closed.
Junior Doctors
This will be the final day of a 72-hour junior doctors strike, which has been running since Monday 13th March.
The British Medical Association say 48,000 doctors are taking part.
Border Force staff and other Civil Servants
Around 130,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union are on strike today in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
More than 130 Government departments, agencies and sites – including the British Museum and British Library, as well as the Border Force – will be affected.
University staff
More than 70,000 staff members of the University and College Union (UCU) will begin the first of three successive days of strike action across 150 universities in the UK.
London Underground staff
Tube drivers and other London Underground staff will strike today with the RMT and Aslef co-ordinating their strike action.
BBC
Members of the National Union of Journalists at BBC Local in England will strike in protest at programme cuts.
“The Government can stop these strikes today"
Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka warned the action is just the start of strikes that could last until the end of the year.
He said: “On Budget Day we’re asking Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to give our hard-working members a fair pay rise.
“We’ve been given a 2% pay rise when food inflation was 16% last week. 40,000 civil servants use food banks and 45,000 claim in-work benefits because they’re so poor.
“The Government can stop these strikes today by putting money on the table for our members.
The Prime Minister defends anti-strike laws
On Monday, Rishi Sunak said he does not think it right that “there is so much disruption” being caused by industrial action as he defended his administration’s anti-strikes legislation.
The Prime Minister, speaking to Sky News while in San Diego, US, said: “I don’t think it’s right that there’s so much disruption being caused to working families’ lives.
“That’s why I, as Prime Minister, introduced new laws to have minimum safety levels in our critical public services like rail, like education, like healthcare.
“It’s precisely because I do think people should not be able to have that disruption in their lives that I’m putting that new law through Parliament.”
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