UK public workers strike over pension reform
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China.org.cn, December 1, 2011
Thousands of public sector workers Wednesday walked out in London in a dispute over pension reform plan with British Prime Minister David Cameron's government.
![Supporters rally outside the University College Hospital London, the United Kingdom , Nov. 30, 2011. Over 2 million public sector workers throughout UK go on strike on Wednesday to protest against the government's pension reform plan. [Zeng Yi/Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20111201/000cf1bdd03f1041084502.jpg "Supporters rally outside the University College Hospital London, the United Kingdom , Nov. 30, 2011. Over 2 million public sector workers throughout UK go on strike on Wednesday to protest against the government's pension reform plan. [Zeng Yi/Xinhua]") |
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Supporters rally outside the University College Hospital London, the United Kingdom , Nov. 30, 2011. Over 2 million public sector workers throughout UK go on strike on Wednesday to protest against the government's pension reform plan. [Zeng Yi/Xinhua] |
The demonstrators marched in central London, holding placards reading "No cuts," "Save our pensions," "Strike on to win," to protest against the plan that would force them to work longer and pay more contributions to their pensions.
The government said about 900,000 civil servants, local-government and health workers demonstrated amid the 24-hour strike on Wednesday, San Francisco Chronicle reported.
However, Xinhua reported that over 2 million public sector workers went on strike on Wednesday, which forced most of the schools to close and no-urgent operations to be cancelled.
Figures from Education Department suggested that more than 58 percent of England's 21,700 state schools were closed, with another 13 percent partly shut.
The strike failed to disrupt air travel. More immigration officials than expected turned up to work, preventing delays for travelers arriving at airports, said British Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude.
"Due to the effective contingency plans we have put in place with the airlines and the UK Border Agency over recent days, immigration queues are currently at normal levels," said a statement released by the London airport, one of the busiest airports in Europe.
The airport indicated earlier that immigration queue time at the airport for non-EU passengers could be two to three hours.
As for medical service, thousands of routine treatments and appointments are being cancelled because nearly 400,000 health staff including nurses, healthcare workers, administrative staff and cleaners walked out.
A spokesman of The Royal Free Hospital said that though some of its staff might join the strike, "the service should be normal."
Another hospital in northwest London also denied its service will be disrupted by the strike, Xinhua reported.
The British government's pension reform plan will have the public sector staff work longer before retiring and pay more for pensions and switch from final-salary to career average schemes.
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