Unions are on the brink of calling for “synchronised” strikes, the leader of the RMT union has suggested.
Mick Lynch today warned of a “massive response from working people” as inflation is outstripping workers’ pay.
The RMT boss flocked to Euston Station to join the picket line, alongside TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady, as railway workers staged another strike in dispute over their pay and conditions.
Only around one in five trains were running across the country on Thursday because of the walkout by members of the RMT and TSSA unions.
Asked if the UK was close to a general strike, Mr Lynch said: “Only the TUC can call a general strike.”
He added: “There is a wave of reaction amongst working people to the way they’re being treated. People are getting poorer every day of the week.
"People can’t pay their bills. They’re getting treated despicably at the workplace. I think there will be generalised and synchronised action.
"It may not be in a traditional form.”
He added: “But we’ve seen the Post Office workers and BT [on strike] , we've seen the bus workers in London out on strike tomorrow and over the weekend.
"I think there is a massive response coming from working people because they’re fed up with the way they’ve been treated.”
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps set out a ’16 point plan’ to tackle the rail strikes.
He listed plans to stop people using "inflammatory language" on pickets and force unions to give four weeks’ notice of industrial action.
" Angela Rayner, Labour's Deputy Leader slammed his points as “desperate and destructive”.
"Grant Shapps hasn’t lifted a finger to resolve the strikes and he continues to offer nothing for working people facing the cost-of-living emergency," she said.
The country doesn't need a 16-point plan to fuel a row, people need Labour's plan to freeze energy bills, get more money into people's pockets, and curb soaring inflation.
Instead of doing their jobs, Tory ministers are dreaming up reckless anti-union laws that would inflame disputes, risk passenger safety, and weaken employment rights.
"Shapps could resolve this strike with a one-point plan: him getting around the table and doing his job.”
It came after the Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said Labour MPs standing on a picket line would not “sort out” industrial disputes over the rising cost of living.
Asked whether the Opposition will be visiting picket lines, Ms Phillipson said: “We want to be the next government, so, if we were the government, we would be around that negotiating table sorting out the dispute, we would be a party to those negotiations.
"I don’t think being on a picket line is going to sort this problem out.”
