Tory leader claimed teachers striking for better pay will be 'ignoring their responsibilities'

The Conservative leader on Bury council has launched a blistering attack on teachers, rail workers and junior doctors who are considering striking for better pay.

Opposition leader Coun Russell Bernstein said ‘shame on any teacher’ who takes strike action and said any who did would be ‘ignoring their responsibilities’. During a speech at a meeting of Bury’s full council this week, Coun Berrnstein also condemned striking rail union members for ‘not wanting to modernise’ and claimed junior doctors who are considering balloting for industrial action are ‘expecting money trees to pop up’.

The comments came as the council debated a Conservative motion which called on Bury Council to write a letter to the the TUC asking them to withdraw support for the current action by the RMT transport union and to urge all trade unions threatening industrial action to cease to do so.

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The motion also called on the the council to convene an emergency meeting of Bury’s Teachers Joint Consultative Committee to make clear that any potential industrial action set against the background of normalisation from Covid-19 will be damaging to children in Bury and to write a letter to the British Medical Association outlining the irresponsibility of any industrial action by junior doctors.

Coun Bernstein, said: “We need to carry on supporting the most vulnerable in society and looking to provide measured support to all. No wonder trade union membership stands today at six million down significantly from the 13 million back in the halcyon days of the 1970s.

“As we prepare for a period of sustained industrial action across the