Volunteers save the situation: Undergraduate Railway Workers. Illustration by ILN special artist, Steven Spurrier depicting the successful distribution of the country's food during the General Strike. Volunteers are handling milk at Paddington station which has just arrived on a train, delivering it onto lorries waiting to take it to various depots for distribution. The volunteers worked in 12-hour shifts. In support of a strike by coal miners over the issue of threatened wage cuts, the Trades Union Congress called a General Strike in early May 1926. The strike only involved certain key industrial sectors (docks, electricity, gas, railways) but, in the face of well-organised government emergency measures and lack of real public support, it collapsed after nine days.