UNITED KINGDOM: Hundreds of thousands British public service workers prepare to strike over pension reforms

Record ID: 339680

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Hundreds of thousands British public service workers prepare to strike over pension reforms
  • Date: 30th June 2011
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (FILE - MARCH 26, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF LARGE UNION DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT CUTS
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7X1SA01ZUVZPUYRE6KPQP1MGC
  • Story Text: Around 750,000 British teachers and civil servants will strike over pension reform on Thursday (June 30) in the most serious challenge to the coalition government's austerity drive.
    Thousands of schools will close as teachers skip class and travellers face delays at ports and airports as immigration officials join the protest.
    Protests are becoming increasingly common across Europe in what is turning into a summer of strife.
    Union members in London were busy making banners and placards protesting pension reforms on Wednesday (June 29) ahead of a demonstration in central London on Thursday.
    Public sector workers in Britain are already facing a pay freeze and more than 300,000 job cuts as the Conservative-led coalition seeks to virtually wipe out by 2015 a budget deficit that peaked at more than 10 percent of national output.
    Pension reform is the final straw for some unions, angered that their members are being asked to work longer and pay more for their retirement.
    "We're striking now because the government has made it absolutely clear they intend to make our workers work eight years longer, pay thousands of pounds more and get half the pension they currently get," said Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PSC) union.
    "We hope that when the government sees the strength of feeling amongst their own staff they will start meaningfully negotiating with us," he said.
    There will likely be disruption at airports and ports with some Border Patrol staff on strike. Dover port and Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester airports will be the most affected, the PCS union said.
    David Frost, the head of the British Chamber Of Commerce, said the strike sends out a bad message for British business.
    "Businessmen from across the global are going to landing at major UK airports and they are going to be stuck in lengthy queues because the Border Agency staff are out on strike. This is not good for UK PLC," he said.
    The government estimates that some 3,200 schools will be closed with 2,200 only partly open.
    Head teacher at Heaton Manor School, in Newcastle in the northeast of England, Lynne Ackland, said striking is not a decision taken lightly.
    "I don't think anybody wanted to be on strike. It's not something where people go 'Oh great we'll have a day off by going on strike', so the implications are quite significant in that everybody's possibly having a day of disrupted learning," she said.
    The government and the opposition Labour party have both condemned the strikes as premature, given that negotiations between unions and ministers are continuing.
    Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Wednesday the strikes were irresponsible.
    He poured scorn on opposition leader Labour's Ed Miliband for neither condemning nor supporting the strikes, accusing the Labour party, which receives money from unions, of being in their pocket.
    "What the whole country will have noticed is that at a time when Greece is facing huge problems over its deficit he can't talk about Greece because his plan is to make Britain like Greece," said Cameron to jeers and cheers in the Commons.
    The stoppages on Thursday are likely to be just a taste of things to come later this year if those talks fail to close the yawning gap between the two sides.
    Public sympathy for the strikers appears to be limited. A Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll last week showed opinion divided over whether public sector workers were right to strike.
    Union power in Britain has waned since Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government took on print and mining unions in the 1980s, changing the face of British industry.
    Unions are encouraging people to take to the streets as part of country-wide demonstrations. The last big union march was on March 26, where tens of thousands demonstrated in London. That protest turned violent when a small minority calling themselves anarchists clashed with police and smashed up shops.
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