you are with al jazeera. these are our top stories. russia's accusing ukraine of using drones to attack two of its airbases. hundreds of kilometers away from their shared border. moscow said they were targeting long-range warplanes and three servicemen were killed. reporter: one of them is only 185 commoners southeast of moscow. that is where three people were

killed when a fuel tanker caught fire and exploded. the statement mentioned those were three servicemen. the other base is 300 kilometers southeast of moscow. that's where the bombers are stationed, the long-range bombers. laura: ukraine says a wave of russian missile strikes have caused power cuts across the country. they targeted energy facilities in the capital. at least two people were killed. protesters in mongolia have dispersed after storming the government palace. officials had ordered police to use force to break up the crowd earlier on monday. demonstrators are calling for an end to corruption. sudan's military rulers and a coalition applicable parties signed a deal to end a political standoff that has lasted for months. the agreement is expected to

pave the way for the establishment of civilian rule and elections. sudan has been without a functioning government since october of last year when the military seized power. thousands of more people in indonesia are being ordered to evacuate after a volcano corrupted sunday. the government has imposed an eight kilometer exclusion zone with fears of further lava zones. brazil have cruised into the quarterfinals of the world cup, beating south korea 4-1. brazil will face croatia. they beat japan earlier in the evening. those are your headlines. stay with us. "inside story" is next.

>> it is a winter of discontent for britain. hundreds of thousands of public sector employees are growing on strike this month. they say they have had enough of low wages and raising -- rising cost. this is "inside story." welcome to the program. britain is facing at least a month of unprecedented strike action this winter. hundreds of thousands of public sector workers are walking off the job. the situation has become so serious that the government may ask the military to help keep services running. security guards, teachers and staff in the postal and rail

services across the u.k. are planning days of industrial action, so are up to 100,000 nurses in coordination with other health care employees. they say decades of low pay and poor working conditions have left them unable to deal with the rising cost of living. government described this site -- the strikes as unnecessary and urged unions to call them. union leaders say they don't have a choice. >> we have members who are sleeping in cars and can't afford the petrol to go to work. we have numbers having to go to food banks. when i say members, i mean nurses working in hospitals are having to rely on food banks. the reality is it's a direct result of the cost-of-living crisis where workers can't make ends meet while companies are still making huge profits. this is in the sixth richest country in the world.

workers cannot take strike action lightly, but they do not have a choice and i think increasingly, workers are thinking why should they have to pay the price for an economic crisis that is not of their making? anchor: how did we get here? research suggests about 45 million brits will struggle to pay their energy bills this winter. u.k. inflation reached a 41 year high of 11.1 percent in october is the price of food and fuel sword. rishi sunak, the third prime minister this year, is grappling with an economic crisis and recession predicted to last well into 2000 283. economists have blamed the war in ukraine, the knock on effects of the pandemic in the aftermath of brexit. let's bring in our guests joining us from london. he is the unite the union lead officer. we have a conservative party

counselor and a chief market analysts. thank you so much for your time. it has been described as the winter of discontent, reflecting perhaps the 1970's where pretty much everybody seemed to go on strike. would you say that's a fair description of what the country is facing? guest: it does seem to be a fair description. i can't help but think the strikes are completely unnecessary and in your clip, my other guest on the show has stated his members cannot afford the cost of living crisis. it is going to affect everybody. the cost-of-living crisis is not just hitting those industries, it is hitting everybody in the entire country and what the strikes will do is put more pressure on those families who have to get to work by other means. if they can't use a train, they have to drive. the cost of petrol is so

exorbitant that will put even more pressure on those individuals. with the nurses striking, that's going to increase the backlog. they public now, their sympathy is elsewhere. they just want their lives to be un-disrupted even though they understand the meanings behind the strike. guest: the reality is the strikes are absolutely necessary because people do not have a choice. if you look at the wide breadth of people involved in these strikes, that really sends the message. as trade unions, we are always willing to negotiate and strike action is always a last result -- last resort. but our members right now do not have any choice. we have a situation where our members are going through a cost-of-living crisis while at the same time, employers have

been making record profits. we are however -- we have a situation where nurses are relying on food banks. people might be losing their own homes. people have to rely on state benefits, where there are families who dread to score holidays because oftentimes that's the only place a children -- their children can get a hot meal. the fact people have voted for strike action and we have met the threshold set by the law that make it in some cases quite difficult to have a legal vote for strike action, the fact we are getting those ballots through tells you everything. people do not want to take a strike action but are being forced to take a strike action because of the situation we are in. the other thing to make very clear is this is not just about

a protest. we know that strike action wins. we have been involved in over 450 separate disputes within the vast majority of those, putting around 270 million pounds of extra earnings into our members pockets. the conclusion is the strikes are necessary. our members don't have a choice and our members know strike action works and that's why we are going through what we are going through at the moment. it is a cost-of-living crisis together with a profiteering crisis. anchor: i will come back to you and we can drill down on some of these points. could you comment on what the conservative party chairman had to say. he said it's the wrong time to strike over low pay because it would help vladimir putin divide

the west. what do you make of these comments? guest: in the midst of everything, politics is the main reason. the politicians and their main stance is the reason we are here in the first place. we have self-inflicted injuries in the united kingdom and the current consequences are very much the result of that. if we were to compare the cost-of-living crisis in the united kingdom, compare that to france, germany and the rest of the year nan, the rest of the eu, you would see even in terms of subsidies, he was he a clear difference in terms of electric bill when you compare that with germany, france or the eu, you can see the results. taking the political angle on the back of this one, from an economic perspective, we need more certainty. we do not need a political environment where you are throwing up another geopolitical

uncertainty currently the government is pretty much doing that by picking another war with the second-biggest economy of the world, china. we wanted from an investor perspective, investors like to see more certainty than uncertainty and that can mitigate all the concerns in relation to the cost-of-living crisis, economic growth, in terms of inflation. one of the panel members mentioned earlier that the situation is going to get worse -- it's going to get a lot more dire in 2023 because if anyone was paying in terms of their mortgage 1.7 percent to 1.5%, the current rate e is between 6% to 7%. so your mortgage payments are going to be more than doubled. in london, we have hundreds and thousands of those mortgages that are going to kick in.

i'm very much sympathetic with the current situation and what is happening, but we hope the government can shape up some right policies in order to mitigate the circumstances we have. anchor: what does the government have to do at this point? guest: the government has negotiated most recently as today and that offer has been rejected by one of the unions regarding train strikes. i think we are left in a difficult position. if the offer is not accepted, the strikes are going ahead. there's nothing else the government can do. what worries me is the effect this is going to have on the economy, on people's employment, if they cannot get to work, they cannot earn money, they cannot feed their family, the knocked out -- the knock on effect is enormous. the lockdowns we suffered in the

united kingdom are going to be hit doubly hard coming up to the festive season, which is normally their busiest time. i would hope the unions will get back around the table with the government. i think they need to work out where their differences lie and the unions cannot keep demanding such an enormous increase in pay and conditions without looking at what the financial position of the united kingdom actually is. they million -- they may well have to come down on their offer and the government may have to increase theirs. at the moment, they've gone as far as they can. anchor: tell us the union's position on this and whether there could be a possibility whether they do come down on their offer. has the government done enough for the unions? guest: the government has done nowhere near enough. just take one example -- the ballots for the nhs. the government is refusing to

negotiate and indeed does not negotiate. they go through the pain review body where people make a submission and the government and the body decide what offer they want to make after that pain review body has met. rather than that sham of a process, what we need is negotiations and that's not happening. in scotland, where there are negotiations that have taken place with the scottish government, it does seem as if there's some progress being made there. claire made the point earlier on about the impact on businesses and strikes, but here's the reality -- unless you pay people a decent wage, they cannot go out and spend the money at christmas anyway. that's the reality. they cannot go out and spend the money as part of the hospitality industry and enjoy themselves because they are not being paid a decent wage. as far as the u.k. economy is

concerned, research has found, and it is on our website, we produced research from the figures available to us from company accounts that show large companies, the major companies in the u.k. have made 75% increases in their profit margins between 2019 and 2021. it is bigger profit margins than they were making prior to the pandemic. so the argument really is there is money there in the economy and our view is the wrong people have got it. they've got too much of it and it's about time we started discussing how we redistribute that. anchor: is there money really there? some people worry if workers get pay raises, there employers would have to push up prices for customers and that pushes up inflation and you have a never ending spiral. is that a correct assessment?

is there money but it is just in the wrong hands? guest: if you look at the most recent quarterly earnings, we see an increment of supply chain in terms of the cost, whether that's on the labor side or actual ingredient or cost structure. we have seen a large number of companies suffering from their margins. so what they did is increase their prices. to give you just a very simple example in the u.k., especially in london. a basket of eggs for 30 eggs used to be three pounds. now it is seven or eight pounds. meet used to be seven pounds, now it's 15 pounds. people who are struggling, struggling with paying the bills and are going to have a really cold winter on top of that, how are they going to afford this, not to mention their mortgages? going back to the original

question -- the companies have increased the product cost and that is feeding into your question and what we referred to earlier, it is the cost for fuel and the cost for that and because of that there is an increase in margins. but who is actually paying is the normal person, the consumer on the street is actually paying for that and they do not have enough money coming in, disposable incomes have completely eradicated because of the government's policies. anchor: do you think there is enough money to combat the situation but it's concentrated in the wrong places? guest: if you look at train operating companies, they do make an enormous profit, but that's not for the government to tell them what to do with it. those are private companies. so i take exception to that. but i like to point out with the

nhs pay review boards, they are there for this kind of purpose, to have a look and see what is fair pay across the board. if you start demanding something which is 5% above inflation, that's completely unworkable. you are never going to have that kind of conversation because immediately, neither side is going to win. so the negotiation just does need to be better in that respect but use the pay review board for what it is therefore. anchor: francis o'grady said it's not just about the spike in inflation, it is about the 12 years of austerity and cutbacks to public services. so how much do you think this is about what's going on now versus a general unhappiness that has been going on for a long time over the state of public services and the u.k.? guest: i don't think you can

blame just 12 years of inactivity on public services at all. i think successive governments have not made the investment needed into those infrastructure projects and into the staff within these public-sector positions. this is government as a whole. you need to take a party politics out of it and look at why the state has failed to make these improvements over the last 20, 30, even 40 years. i don't think you can put the blame solely on one person. i think government as a whole is to blame for this and it's going to be the individual on the street who's going to suffer enormously because they cannot afford that either to get out and spend money if they cannot get to work and earn a wage in the first place. anchor: some say the unions are trying to harm the government and union leaders will see a moment like this as an opportunity to show what these unions can actually do for their members. what's your response to that and how much could this be about their personal position versus

the actual issues their members care about? guest: our union is actually 100% focused on the work lace and we have made that very clear. we do not care what the political colors are of the party we are dealing with. just to give you some examples, and local government, we had a number of disputes against both conservative and labor, local authorities. we do not care what the particle colors are of the government, the local authority we are dealing with. we are 100% laser focused on winning for our members in the workplace. that being said, it is convenient for claire to sate this is about 20 or 30 years of problems when we've had 12 years of a conservative government. take what's going on in the nhs at the moment, you have 133,000 vacancies.

we have debt still being paid off, we've got cuts, privatization accelerated by this government and what is now going on is a communicative effect of almost all of those issues impacting on the nhs. that's why we are in the position we are in, fighting for more pay for workers so we can recruit and retain more workers into the service. that's how you are going to do it. you can't ignore those very specific problems when you have 133,000 vacancies in the nhs. of course that public service is going to suffer. and nhs is critical. patients end up suffering as a result. there is an immediate fix here, which is to pay health workers a decent wage and, yes, we don't want to stick it past the resolution. there's a medium to long-term fix with what we do with the

nhs, what we do with the economy , and how we prioritize what we want to pay for. i think we do need to be looking at how we tax wealth, for instance. i don't think working people should be taxed more pay for services. let's look at wealth because wealth is being made, the wealthier have gotten wealthier and i tell you what, it is not trickling down. anchor: let me bring in claire and allow her to respond. guest: i have to take exception that the private finance exceptions are solely down to the conservative government, which, of course, they were not. it is decades of looking at what the nhs is for. i don't think you can solely lame the conservative government. i think successive governments have not got to grips with the nhs and the problems within it. recruitment and retention is one thing but the levels of bureaucracy, the levels of

management, the mismanagement of funds within hospitals, the money that gets wasted, the need to look at the nhs as an institution that nope little party wants to do that. anybody who suggests we want to look at how we fund the nhs going forward will automatically be put to one side and told they are privatizing it. that is not the case, but it doesn't work in its present situation. it doesn't work for the people of this country now and it certainly not going to work in 10 years time. we need to have a very uncomfortable conversation about that and unions need to be involved. but i do think this is political. it's always looking at what the conservative government has or hasn't done in the union's opinion without taking into account what has come before which has added to all the stress we are dealing with now. anchor: are you getting a sense of where public opinion lies as we speak? according to one poll i read in

october, people were sympathizing with those who are going on strike. but could there be a tipping point in public opinion if things get so bad with all the strikes? is there a risk the opinion will go in the opposite direction? guest: i think what the public really wants is calm and they don't want any more disruption. going into christmas, going into a really strong winter, these disruptions are going to create even more chaos for the economy and the general public. if you have to call on nhs for any emergencies, even if unita -- even if you need an emergency service, he have to be dying for an ambulance to show up at your doorstep. i have a daughter who is three years old who is extremely ill, but it is at a scale that wasn't

critical but they said to us very early that look, we do not have people right now, we are only prioritizing people who are really just about to die or suffering from a death threat. so that's just trying to give you an example of something that happened in my own personal life. there is another side of the story as well. that is eradicating disposable income. the public is largely concerned about that but at the same time, you go into any restaurant in london over the weekend, you will see cues and cues of people. it just makes you think our cost-of-living crisis is as high as it can be. are we really being vigilant in terms of how we are spending? because when you look at that restaurant, there are lines outside. anchor: final words from all

three of you. tell me if you are optimistic the situation will get resolved in the short term? guest: i think rishi sunak, if you look at the perspective, to restore good -- confidence in the ability to restore that, it's on track. anchor: will the country get back on track? guest: it's going to be incredibly tough but in six to 12 months time, we will be past the worse of this. anchor: do you share what claire had to say? guest: we have no faith in politicians. they have let down working people time and time again. we have faith in our members and we are confident our members are willing, ready and prepared to take the action necessary to win decent pay increases and save services like nhs. anchor: thank you so much for joining us.

thanks for watching the program. you can see it again anytime by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. join the conversation on twitter. for myself and the team here, thank you for watching and goodbye for now.

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