Civil servants staged their biggest strike in more than a decade today in a bitter row over jobs, forcing the closure of museums and disrupting driving tests, jobcentres, benefit offices and Customs.
The Public and Commercial Services union reported solid support for the walkout and predicted that around 200,000 workers would take part in the day of action to protest at controversial Government plans to axe more than 100,000 jobs.
Picket lines were mounted outside Government offices, museums and galleries across the UK in a huge outbreak of industrial unrest, which also saw ministerial cars go unwashed.
The union's general secretary, Mark Serwotka, toured picket lines across London in a special "strike bus", accompanied by a band.
He said: "By staying away from work today, tens of thousands of hard working civil servants have voted with their feet, sending a clear message that they will not tolerate the slash and burn approach of the Government, which will decimate services."
The Science Museum, British Museum and the reading rooms of the British Library in London were among those closed by the strike.
Consideration
A message on the Science Museum's website said: "Amongst other roles, members of PCS at the museum provide our security and also have a key role in evacuating the building in emergencies.
"Without these staff members we cannot guarantee the safety of visitors in the event of an emergency which is always our primary consideration. For this reason it is necessary to close the museum to the public on this day."
Chancellor Gordon Brown issued a defiant statement about the strike, saying: "This action will not affect our determination to make savings at the centre to increase investment in vital services at the front line such as healthcare, education, transport and the fight against crime.
"Our decisions mean more police, more teachers, more doctors and more nurses.
"We will provide help with information, relocation and retraining to help staff move into frontline work within the public sector, but we will not be diverted from these necessary changes so that we can make this essential investment."
Around 160 Government departments and agencies will be hit by the stoppage, which could be followed by further industrial action if the row is not resolved.
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Whilst I agree that payrates are questionable in todays society I am slightly concerned about what people are doing to make there own lives better and more fullfilled.
There were petrol strikes regarding it's costs a few years ago, yet petrol is a foul chemical that is killing everything and is incredibly expensive to clean up the mess it creates (ask people who have to mend old churces and buildings from the damage), people know this! People didn't demand a change iin science to make things better for all, no, they wanted the nasty stuff to be cheaper or strike....... (did you know if all pollution costs from petrol were slapped on the petrol-duty it would cost B#500 per gallon?!!)
The postmen striked in the midlands several times this year, regarding payrates and treatment, yet there was no talk about how much money these posties were saving for there own education. If any at all. That side of things didn't appear.
People in the southeast need B#250,000 for a small 2 bed house nowadays. Supply and demand on a small island will do this. Rent is very expensive down this end. Yet no-one is attacking that side of things, ie the things that make life expensive. Instead these people choose to punish the people directly around them rather than get to the bottom of what is really wrong and there is no talk regarding what they have done to help provide a solution, they seem to just want everything without doing the real depthly thinking.
Now, the civil servants are doing pretty much the same thing.