UK: Police and prison officers go on strike

LONDON - Public sector workers and police officers took to the streets today to protest against pension reforms and pay cuts. The unions say the campaigns will continue for the rest of the year. 
Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers – including at least 100,000 civil servants – took industrial action across the country today.


Len McCluskey of Unite, UK’s largest public workers union – who made a personal and well-received speech – said there would be “more strikes in June, at the end of the summer, the winter, next spring and on and on and on”. Mark Serwotka of the PCS union said his members’ pensions were being “robbed” and he wanted to see private-sector pensions brought up to the level of public-sector ones, not vice versa. He said the government was “swimming against the tide” of public opinion over its austerity measures.

Along the public workers were an estimated 30,000 off-duty police from all 43 forces in England and Wales who also staged a strike and marched through central London to protest against government cuts to officer numbers – the biggest demonstration by police officers in England and Wales ever. In addition, prison officers staged a surprise walkout across the country in protest at the raising of their retirement age, prompting government solicitors to threaten them with legal action.  Some murder trials were disrupted when prisoners were not brought to court.
Police and prison officers are banned from striking by law. The mood was one of “polite anger”, and officers wore black baseball caps reading “cuts are criminal” to denote the number of police they said would be cut by the coalition.
The public workers union, Unite also warned that its bus drivers in London may strike during the Olympics over their pay levels during the games in London this summer.