huge marches and demonstrations were held in towns and cities all over the UK yesterday.
More than two million nurses, other health workers, teachers, other education workers, council workers, civil servants and other public sector workers took strike action in defence of their pensions.
More than 50,000 joined the march and rally in central London. In Manchester 30,000 people attended a march and rally, while in Bristol 20,000 people congregated in the city centre, as they did in Sheffield and Norwich. A demonstration in Liverpool attracted in excess of 15,000 people.
There has been great support for the strike among PCS members at the UK Border Agency in Croydon where the Immigration Enquiry Bureau and Asylum Screening Unit closed.
At the Old Bailey only a third of courts were sitting and the Stephen Lawrence case went ahead with the support of PCS, with the Lawrence family’s solicitor Imran Khan wearing a ‘Hands off our Pensions’ badge in court. At the Royal Courts of Justice judges refused to sit because there were no clerks.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: ‘The message to the government is if you don’t negotiate with us we will do this again.’
There were mass pickets from early morning outside thousands of schools, hospitals, town halls and job centres and other workplaces up and down the country.
Virtually every school in the country was closed for the day, there was emergency cover only at hospitals, job centres, town halls, ports, airports and other public sector workplaces were either closed or effectively shut down for the day.
In London there was a massive 50,000-strong march from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Trafalgar Square with scores of Unison, Unite, PCS, NUT, Nasuwt, UCU, Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists and other union banners, balloons and placards on the march.
Hundreds of workers and youth marched behind the Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists banner and joined in with the slogans – Defend our Pensions – Kick this government out! and TUC Get off Your Knees – Call a General Strike!’
Herbert Bukari, Brent NUT Equal Opportunities Officer told News Line: ‘They are lying when they say they can’t afford the pension.
‘They want young people to work longer, pay more and get less when they retire.
‘We know that there’s £46.8 billion surplus in the pension fund, that’s a lot of money and the government want to hold on to it.
‘But we won’t let them get away with it. It looks like we’re heading for a general strike.’
Near the front of the march there was a large delegation from Avenue Primary School in Newham, East London.
Carrying their banner, NUT member Andy Little said: ‘We’re not being selfish, we just won’t let this government sell us down the river.
‘The media rolls out the usual propaganda saying we’re greedy and pampered, but we’re not, we are committed public servants who care about the children and the jobs that we do.’
Iram Rehman, NUT member and History and Geography teacher at Avenue Primary, said: ‘Our school is closed and everyone at our school is supporting the strike, all the unions, it’s unprecedented, all the unions in action on the same day.
‘It’s not just pensions that we’re fighting for, there are many issues. All you get from this government is cuts, cuts, cuts.
‘I think we are going to need to have a general strike against this government. The Labour government ended up being like the Tories, with the same policies.
‘All the politicians are multi-millionaires, so they can’t have any idea what it’s like for ordinary people. I think there’s going to have to be some kind of a revolution.’
Steve Bacon from Haringey Unison, said: We’re fighting the euthanasia of our pension scheme. We’re being downgraded to second class citizens. It’s an equalities issue.
‘Today’s a great day, seeing the strength of the unions. We’ve got to stop the cuts in public services.
‘It was another kick in the teeth yesterday when the chancellor said he was imposing a 1% pay cap for the next two years.’
Warner Caspersz, Society of Radiographers member from St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, said: ‘It’s a great day today. To have so many people and so many different unions all working together is the way it should be.’
Carrying a banner saying ‘Pinstripe Thugs’, Chanice McBean, a philosophy student from King’s College, London, said: The current situation in the UK is completely unfair.
‘The crux of society are our lecturers and everyone in education and nurses and everyone else in public service. I can’t stand the fact that they are now being used to make money for millionaires.’