BRITAIN: Trade union leaders have threatened Tony Blair's government with further industrial action in the run-up to the May local elections after claiming one-million-strong support for yesterday's 24-hour strike over pensions.
Chancellor Gordon Brown also drew the ire of protesting council workers yesterday as he crossed the picket line at London's Guildhall, where he introduced former US president Bill Clinton at a conference on globalisation.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, warned the Local Government Association (LGA) and central government that they faced "a massive backlash" from public sector workers over plans to change their pension schemes and the rule allowing them to retire on full pension aged 60.
The first wave of that "backlash" saw transport, courts and refuse services hit across the UK, with an estimated 17,500 schools closed, in an industrial action described by some organisers as the biggest stoppage in the country since the 1926 general strike.
Union organisers claimed more than one million workers had backed the action, while the LGA, representing council employers, estimated that about 400,000 workers in England had joined the strike.
London, Wales and parts of northern England were hardest hit as leisure centre workers, school staff and office workers, refuse collectors, housing officers and kindergarten nurses, youth and community staff and tourism officials joined the strike.
Some of the worst effects were felt in Northern Ireland. Cross-Border train services between Belfast and Dublin were hit, as were transport services in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Major disruption was similarly reported in Cardiff and Conwy, Leeds, Swansea and Birmingham. Unison said 17,500 schools had been closed, showing strong support from school support staff and teachers who believed the emerging "two-tier system" in pensions was "utterly unfair". At the core of the dispute is the so-called rule of 85, which allows council employees to retire on full pension from age 60 if their age and years of service add up to 85. The government plans to scrap the rule for all workers, existing and new, next month.
However the unions insist local government workers should be treated on the same basis as "national" civil servants, such as policemen, NHS workers, civil servants and teachers, who can retire at 60 on full pension under the terms of a deal secured with government last year.
Addressing hundreds of protesters at a packed rally in central London, Mr Prentis defended last year's deal - which many in the private sector believe will prove unsustainable as the country moves toward a likely retirement age of 68 or even 70 - but insisted: "If it is good enough for doctors or teachers it is good enough for our members in local government."
Mr Prentis added: "I am tired of being lectured by politicians when I see the pension scheme they get. It is hypocritical and we will not stand for it."