11:47am Friday 31st March 2006
By Alex Lewis
ANGRY council workers, probation officers and university employees joined forces yesterday as they walked out over controversial changes to pension rules.
At St Albans District Council, Unison, the largest of the nine unions behind the one-day strike, called out all 250 of its members except those on essential services such as emergency housing repairs.
The issue sparking the stoppage is a proposed rule change that would make retirement at 60 more difficult, but the unions fear it is but the precursor to more sweeping cuts to pension rights.
Paul Rooker, a housing surveyor joining a picket line outside the district council offices in the Civic Centre, St Albans, said: "I feel very strongly about it.
"I totally object to this government paying themselves good pensions, and rubbishing their workers.
"The pension has always been there, and it has been used as a weapon against us in pay negotiations."
Eve McEnally, a University of Hertfordshire librarian picketing the law school in Hatfield Road, said: "I have worked since this was a polytechnic in 1971.
"When I signed up I was told I would have a pension at 60.
"Now they are renewing."
Mark Ewington, picketing the probation office in Victoria Street, said: "The contract we signed is being removed. What kind of pension can we expect to have?"
The Local Government Association (LGA) claims that to give in to the unions' claims would add at least two per cent a year to every council taxpayer's bill.
Chairman Sir Sandy Bruce Lockhart said: "The changes to local government staff pensions are both needed and necessary.
"There must be a modern scheme that is affordable, viable and fit for the 21st Century. People are living longer and unless action is taken now the cost to individual council tax payers and local government will continue to rise."
Both the unions and the LGA are waiting for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to announce his decision on the proposed changes.
A St Albans District Council spokesman said reduced services operated during the strike, although Unison had agreed not to target services for vulnerable people, such as pensioners' lunches at the Jubilee Centre.
Fleetville Library did not open, and a county council spokesman said branches in St Albans and London Colney would close early, although no local schools were affected.
The strike was joined by support staff at Oaklands College, but a spokesman said no classes were disrupted.
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