admin30 years yesterday in a confrontation with the government over its austerity measures.
Prime Minister David Cameron played down the impact of the strike, calling it “something of a damp squib”, saying 40 percent of schools were open and the main London airports were working properly.
As many as two million public sector employees had been expected to walk out over reforms that unions say will force them to work longer before they can retire and pay more for pensions that will be worth less.
Union anger has been fuelled by new curbs on public sector pay and hundreds of thousands of additional job cuts outlined on Tuesday when the Conservative-led coalition government cut economic growth forecasts and said its tough austerity programme would last until 2017. The power of Britain’s trade unions was curbed by Margaret
Thatcher’s Conservative government in the 1980s, but the public sector remains one of their strongholds. Unions are threatening further strikes next year if the dispute is not resolved but analysts say a repeat of the 1979 “Winter of Discontent” that helped Thatcher sweep to power is not on the cards.
“Why are the government picking on us in the public sector?” asked Kevin Smith, 54, picketing in pale winter sunshine outside parliament in London, where he works as a security officer. We had no rise the last two years, before that we were getting lower than inflation rises. So how long is it going to last?” Inflation stands at five percent, far outstripping pay rises for public and private sector workers in a squeeze on living standards that is depressing consumer spending. Fears of long delays at London’s main Heathrow airport proved unfounded after the government flew home embassy staff to help out and recruited volunteers from other departments to carry out passport checks. – Reuters.
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