Unions claimed solid support for a strike by public sector workers today and hit back at Conservative plans to change balloting laws as “utter hypocrisy”.
Schools across England and Wales closed and there was disruption to council services, museums and galleries, the fire service and jobcentres as more than a million workers took industrial action in bitter disputes over pay, pensions, jobs and spending cuts.
The action was hailed as the biggest strike over pay to hit the Government since it came to power in 2010.
Home helps, lollipop men and women, refuse collectors, librarians, dinner ladies, parks attendants, council road safety officers, caretakers and cleaners walked out, alongside teachers, firefighters, civil servants and transport workers.
Picket lines were mounted outside courts, council offices, jobcentres, fire stations and Parliament in outpourings of anger over the coalition’s public sector policies.
The Prime Minister and other senior politicians attacked the strikes, arguing that they are based on ballots conducted some years ago which saw low turnout from union members.
The Conservatives are drawing up plans to change employment law so that a threshold of those balloted would have to be reached before industrial action could be held.
But Unite said no Tory Cabinet member achieved a 50% voting threshold in the last general election.
General secretary Len McCluskey said: “It is utter hypocrisy for the Government to talk about mandates for trade unions when not a single member of the present Cabinet would have been elected using the same criteria.
“The fact is not a single councillor in England has won 50% of the electorate, not a single MEP has reached the 50% threshold, Boris Johnson (London mayor) scraped in with just 37% in 2008 and the Government’s flagship police and crime commissioner election gained a risible 17% of the vote.
“This Government has no mandate to attack trade unions or the workers who have been forced to take industrial action today in their fight to end poverty pay.”
A study by Unite showed that the Cabinet member with the lowest percentage of the vote was Welsh Secretary David Jones, who secured the support of 27% of the electorate in his seat of Clwyd West in 2010, and Culture Secretary Sajid Javid achieved a vote of 30.8% of the electorate in his constituency of Bromsgrove in 2010.
Mr McCluskey added: “Britain’s anti-trade union laws are already amongst the most restrictive in Europe. Tory attempts to further curtail the rights of working people to democratically organise risks placing Cameron’s Britain alongside nations like Kazakhstan, Albania and Niger, where the right for public servants to take action is forbidden.”
Unison said the strike was particularly well supported in the North East, Wales and East Midlands where the union said most council offices have been closed, adding that more than 60 picket lines have closed the majority of services in Newcastle.
On the south coast and Wales, delivery vans have refused to cross picket lines. In London, strikers mounted more than 150 picket lines with many workers refusing to cross.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “It is a massive decision by local government and school support workers to sacrifice a day’s pay by going on strike, but today they are saying enough is enough.
“It is a scandal that people who educate and support children in schools, maintain crucial local services, keep our communities clean and safe places to live, and protect the homeless and vulnerable are not paid at least the Living Wage.
“We are calling on the local government employers to come back to the table and settle this dispute. Politicians from all parties have been talking about the need to end low pay and introduce the Living Wage, and they must get their own house in order first.”
Almost 1,500 schools, colleges and nurseries are reporting full or part closures across 31 authorities in England, while a number of libraries and other services were affected.
Fire chiefs urged people to take extra care because of the walkout by members of the Fire Brigades Union in Wales and England between 10am and 7pm - the 15th round of industrial action in a long-running row over pensions and retirement age.
More than 200,000 members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) were expected to take part in the walkout.
The union’s general secretary, Christine Blower, said: “We obviously think the strike will go very well, there will be many thousands of public sector workers out and that will affect a lot of schools.
“I’ve been getting messages from people saying that they are more determined now than they were in the past to take action.”
Ms Blower insisted that industrial action is just one part of their “stand up for education” campaign, which also includes informing and working with parents and lobbying politicians.
“There are 1,000 teachers in every constituency and politicians need to start listening and begin to put pressure on the Government themselves,” she said.
The NUT’s action, which focuses on three issues - pay, pensions and working conditions - has been condemned by the Department for Education (DfE), which said that it will hold back pupils’ education.
“There is no justification for further strikes,” a DfE spokeswoman said. “The unions asked for talks, we agreed to their request and talks are ongoing.
“The Secretary of State joined talks with the unions on June 25. All ministers meet with the unions frequently and will continue to do so. These strikes will only disrupt parents’ lives, hold back children’s education and damage the reputation of the profession.”
Members of Unison staged a demonstration outside Parliament, holding up giant “slices of bread” to symbolise that workers want more than a 1% slice of the pay bill.
Mick Cash, acting general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, warned of wildcat strikes if changes are made to balloting laws.
“If you remove the right to strike legally or make it almost impossible, then workers will, understandably, take matters into their own hands.
“If a majority of workers in a democratic, secret ballot decide to take action as last resort over their safety or jobs but the government or a judge says you can’t do that because you’ve not reached a threshold or because this is an essential service, it is obvious how workers with a proud militant tradition will react.
“They will eventually take their own action and you will see highly disruptive wildcat action called at very short or no notice.”
The TUC has said public sector workers are on average more than £2,000 worse off under the Government, while half a million council employees earn less than the living wage.
Unison said ending the cap on public sector pay would create thousands of jobs and pump millions of pounds into the economy.
Every 1% increase in public sector pay would generate between £710 million and £820 million for the Government in increased income tax and National Insurance contributions as well as reduced spending on benefits and welfare, said the union.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The vast majority of dedicated public sector workers did not vote for today’s action, and early indications are that most are turning up for work as usual.
“In the civil service we estimate that fewer than 90,000 members of the PCS union will not be working - this is lower than previous strike action, and just a fifth of the civil service workforce
“It is disappointing that, once again, some union leaders have pushed for strike action that will achieve nothing and benefit no one. Union leaders have relied on mandates for action that lack authority - the National Union of Teachers ballot was run nearly two years ago, while other ballots had extremely low turnouts.”
Neil Carberry, the CBI’s director for employment and skills, said: “This strike action will cause disruption across the country and businesses will need to take a commonsense approach to managing their workforce, particularly in the case of parents.
“The main focus should be on ending the dispute, and there always needs to be a clear mandate from members for a strike, given the disruption they can cause the public and businesses. We believe that for any strike to go ahead, there should be a higher threshold on votes so that strikes cannot be called on small turnouts.”
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ``Most public sector workers have reported for work today and well-rehearsed contingency plans are ensuring that nearly all key public services are being delivered as usual.
“In past years, unions made inflated claims about how many they thought would participate in strike action. They were shown to be wrong.
“We can confirm that only a fifth of civil servants - fewer than 90,000 - are on strike. That is down from the strike action in March 2013; all 717 jobcentres opened this morning; the majority of schools in England and Wales are open; fire services are operating across the country; and nationally, disruption to local government services is minimal.
“Nevertheless, it is a huge disappointment that once again a handful of union leaders have pushed for irresponsible strike action, which can cause inconvenience and disruption to children’s education and the lives of hard-working families.
“Union leaders are relying on mandates for action that lack authority - the National Union of Teachers is relying on a ballot run nearly two years ago.”
Telephone callers to jobcentres were told in a recorded message that a limited service was available because of “service difficulties”.
The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union described the Cabinet Office's figures as ``laughable'', adding: ``No-one can trust this government to keep reliable figures, it can't even tell us what it's done with dozens of Home Office files.''
The union said national museums in Liverpool and the National Museum of Scotland were closed and driving test centres were hit.
In the Passport Office in Liverpool, more than 400 staff were on strike and large turnouts were reported from Land Registry offices.
The PCS said there were “very healthy” turnouts in HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions, including 1,350 staff on strike in the Greater Glasgow DWP branch.
Officials said 98% of union members were on strike at the Brighton jobcentre, with claimants told to come back tomorrow.
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude told the Commons that fewer workers were taking part in the strike than during previous industrial action. Fewer than 20% of civil servants were on strike, compared with a third during the last big walkout in 2011, he said.
Mr Maude said responsibility for disruption caused by the stoppage lay with union leaders, adding that the right to strike must be exercised “responsibly”.
He pointed out that only one in five members of Unite and Unison had taken part in ballots leading to today’s strike, adding that low turnouts strengthened the case for reform.
The Local Government Association said that across England, Wales and Northern Ireland around 95% of council staff were at work today.
A spokesman said: “Local authorities have put contingency plans in place to ensure that residents notice as little disruption as possible.
“Most of our staff are at work today, continuing the fantastic job they do of running the services on which people rely.
“Councils know how tough recent years have been for our employees. Local government workers have performed wonders in maintaining important services during the biggest cuts to funding in living memory.
“With a £5.8 billion funding shortfall to tackle over the next two years, budgets for local services will continue to be stretched for the foreseeable future.
“The offer we have made to increase most employees’ pay by 1% is at the absolute limit of what local authorities can afford.
“We urge the unions to accept this pay increase so that it can reach the pockets of our hard-working staff who have been kept waiting for it since April.”
