Workers strike over pensions

Dozens of council offices, libraries, museums, leisure centres, colleges, nurseries and schools shut down as staff walked out for 24 hours in protest at Government plans to cut their pensions.

Pickets were mounted outside council buildings, police stations, universities, day centres, libraries, museums, schools and other local authority buildings.

Workers ranging from council assistant directors to bin men are furious they could soon be forced to work until 65 to claim a full pension.

Local authority workers are allowed to retire if their age plus length of service adds up to 85 but the Government wants to scrap that rule to try and combat an impending pensions crisis.

The strike was called by the country's biggest unions and will be followed by a series of walkouts in the coming weeks which could halt local elections in May.

Union members are furious that after years of paying into an agreed scheme the rules could be changed and say it is "morally repugnant" to punish society's lowest-paid workers to save council budgets.

More than 3,000 workers in Brighton and Hove were among those striking across Sussex and more than one million across the UK, according to union officials.

Libraries and museums were shut along with the Royal Pavilion, the Brighton Centre and a quarter of the city's 80 schools.

In East Sussex, 14 schools were affected, with nine closing down.

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council said disruption was "fairly minimal", with closures limited to three out of 300 schools and restricted services running at two libraries.

District and borough councils also reported closures. A spokeswoman for Gatwick said there had been no impact on flights or other services.

Workers from across Sussex travelled to Brighton to join a noisy rally outside the Town Hall in Bartholomew Square yesterday lunchtime.

Mark Turner, Sussex secretary of the GMB, told demonstrators: "Today's action is a credit to every single person that has turned out. This will demonstrate to John Prescott we are not here to muck around.

"This is about the serious issue of protecting you in old age.

"They are asking you, the backbone of local government, to forego your pension rights.

"Today's action is the start of bigger things to come."

Unison's Teana Ashley, who joined pickets outside Eastbourne Town Hall, said: "We had a massive operation with pickets of every major building.

"It has been incredibly successful, beyond anything we envisaged.

"We've had non-members in full support of our actions and refusing to cross the picket lines. We've also had massive public support.

"If this strike doesn't convince the powers that be they have made a mistake. We have more action lined up. It will be longer and more hardhitting than just one day."

Brighton and Hove City Councillors Kevin Allen and Francis Tonks (Labour) and Keith Taylor and Georgia Wrighton (Green) joined the rally.

Coun Allen said: "I am here to show solidarity because what is happening to local authority workers is inequitable and totally wrong."

Coun Taylor said: "The Greens are standing shoulder to shoulder with the unions.

"We think the public is going to see how what the Government is trying to do is completely unjust."

Mick Molloy, 41, a porter at the Royal Sussex County Hospital and convenor of NHS GMB at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, said: "What these workers are giving to their community is a public service. That is worth something and they are worth something.

"We have got to make this sham of a government realise that."

Dave Fellows, a senior practitioner in children's services at East Sussex County Council, warned: "We have got to up the stakes and prepare to do more build up our workforces and stage longer, more organised actions.

"We have not got the right to give away what previous unionists won for us."

Sussex Police support staff, including control room workers, forensics staff and community support officers, walked out for the first time in more than a decade and there was a picket outside its headquarters in Lewes.

Unison secretary Sarah Reed said although the number of people joining the action was probably less than a hundred, it was significant because it was "not the done thing" for police staff to strike.

She said: "Staff are just so angry about what is being proposed that they have joined industrial action for the first time in my memory."

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said emergency and non-emergency calls were unaffected by the stoppage.

Fiona Roberts, 48, a worker for the Children and Family Court Advisory Service and member of the National Union of Probation Officers, which also took part in the strike, said: "If I work for another 12 years I will only get eight years pensions contributions if the changes go ahead.

"That is the difference between being able to have a moderate but adequate income or having an impoverished retirement."

Dave Jones, 40, who works at the city council's staff nursery, said: "Looking after a room full of under-fives is a difficult job.

"My mother was a nursery nurse once and she is now 64.

"There is no way she could still be doing that very demanding work.

"There are jobs where people should not be working over a certain age."

Andy Clarke, 26, a planner at Mid-Sussex District Council, said: "I joined the council because of good job security and good pension schemes.

"All they are doing now is taking away money we earned and denying us access to it.

"We are going to stand up and shout about this until something is done."

Bill North, 53, a lecturer at City College Brighton and Hove and secretary of the Brighton and Hove District Trades Council, said: "How can we explain this to MPs who have a guaranteed pension of £28,000 a year?

"Imagine going into one of your expensive restaurants.

"You pay your money upfront and then after a while you are told, 'Well actually, the main course is just going to be Brussel sprouts, you are going to have to wait three days for it and it will cost twice as much'."

Members of the public had a mixed response to the action. Varndean pupil Hannah Figg, 17, said: "I totally support the strikers. I want to be sure that when I get to retirement age I will get proper pension rights."

Lee Johnston, 35, of Brunswick Square, Hove, said: "These people have been paying money towards their pensions for years under an agreed system. It is totally wrong to suddenly take that money away from them.

"They work very hard doing a lot of good for society and I hope they win this battle."

Morris Russell, 67, of Broomfield Avenue, Worthing, said: "Everyone should work till 65. That's the national retirement age. I couldn't draw my pension until I was 65 so why make an exception for the few?"