Schools, hospitals, bin collections, libraries, job centres, courts, day centres and many other services are expected to be hit when public sector workers strike over pension reforms next week.
Unions that represent most teachers and up to half of council and Kettering General Hospital staff are planning a co-ordinated walk-out next Wednesday over government proposals to make them contribute more to their pensions, work longer and get less when they finally retire.
Gordon White, county secretary for the NUT, which has 3,750 members in the county, said: “It’s huge. It’s going to be the biggest strike turnout the county has ever seen, and certainly for decades.
“In the county in the past it has been individual unions, but now we are united.”
Kettering Council expects bin collections to be interrupted and Corby Council said Corby Swimming Pool, Lodge Park Sports Centre and its one-stop shop in the Cube could be hit.
The last strike on June 30 closed classrooms in a third of county schools, but that was before headteachers’ union NAHT, which has 463 members in the county, teaching union NASUWT, which has almost 3,000, and Unison, which represents caretakers, dinner ladies and other school staff joined.
Mr White said: “For most primaries it will be difficult to even open because Unison will be on strike.”
An Evening Telegraph survey found that out of the 117 schools in the north of the county, only a dozen expect to be fully open.
Denise Durham, headteacher of Danesholme Infant School, Corby, which is expecting to be affected, said: “We are not trying to put parents out because they are our best clients.
“I’m hoping our members of staff will tell me next week so I can write to parents.”
An NAHT spokesman said: “We appreciate that everyone has to make concessions in these straitened times which is why teachers have already accepted a two-year pay freeze and tighter budgets.
“It is also why they have made sure that the teachers’ pension scheme, which was significantly amended in 2007, is sustainable and affordable, a fact with which the National Audit Office concurs.
“The bottom line is that Northamptonshire’s children deserve a good education and if we do not stand up for this principle now, what effect will it have on the future workforce who will be responsible for digging our economy out of the recession?”
Striking workers are expected march through Northampton on the day in protest at the pension changes.
But unions are looking for a bigger venue than the 340-seat Guidhall’s Great Hall used for a rally on June 30, as they expect more than double that number to mass this time.
Source:
northantset.co.uk
Unions that represent most teachers and up to half of council and Kettering General Hospital staff are planning a co-ordinated walk-out next Wednesday over government proposals to make them contribute more to their pensions, work longer and get less when they finally retire.
Gordon White, county secretary for the NUT, which has 3,750 members in the county, said: “It’s huge. It’s going to be the biggest strike turnout the county has ever seen, and certainly for decades.
“In the county in the past it has been individual unions, but now we are united.”
Kettering Council expects bin collections to be interrupted and Corby Council said Corby Swimming Pool, Lodge Park Sports Centre and its one-stop shop in the Cube could be hit.
The last strike on June 30 closed classrooms in a third of county schools, but that was before headteachers’ union NAHT, which has 463 members in the county, teaching union NASUWT, which has almost 3,000, and Unison, which represents caretakers, dinner ladies and other school staff joined.
Mr White said: “For most primaries it will be difficult to even open because Unison will be on strike.”
An Evening Telegraph survey found that out of the 117 schools in the north of the county, only a dozen expect to be fully open.
Denise Durham, headteacher of Danesholme Infant School, Corby, which is expecting to be affected, said: “We are not trying to put parents out because they are our best clients.
“I’m hoping our members of staff will tell me next week so I can write to parents.”
An NAHT spokesman said: “We appreciate that everyone has to make concessions in these straitened times which is why teachers have already accepted a two-year pay freeze and tighter budgets.
“It is also why they have made sure that the teachers’ pension scheme, which was significantly amended in 2007, is sustainable and affordable, a fact with which the National Audit Office concurs.
“The bottom line is that Northamptonshire’s children deserve a good education and if we do not stand up for this principle now, what effect will it have on the future workforce who will be responsible for digging our economy out of the recession?”
Striking workers are expected march through Northampton on the day in protest at the pension changes.
But unions are looking for a bigger venue than the 340-seat Guidhall’s Great Hall used for a rally on June 30, as they expect more than double that number to mass this time.
Source:
northantset.co.uk
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