The workers are demanding a 6 percent increase, which would still only bring the pay of the lowest-paid council worker up to £11,000 per year. The unions say that 275,000 local authority workers earn less than £5 per hour. (£1 = US$1.57)

The strike was called by the main unions that organize council workers: Unison, the General Municipal and Boilermakers Union (GMB), and the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU). A spokeswoman for Unison, the biggest union, said that 750,000 of its members had walked out. The GMB said that the strike was "very solid" with 9 out of 10 of its members having downed tools.

The workforce includes cleaners, school meals staff, refuse collectors, social workers, architects, and housing benefit employees.

The strike followed a vote last month by more than 1.4 million local government workers for a series of one-day stoppages, the first national council workers’ strikes since the so-called 1979 "Winter of Discontent."

According to the Guardian newspaper, "three-quarters of the 1.3 million staff are women." The July 17 action was "the biggest strike by women in British history," the paper said.

The London Evening Standard reported that there were "strong pickets" outside more than half the 33 town halls in the London area, including Ealing, Hillingdon, Harrow, Redbridge, Richmond, Barnet, Tower Hamlets, and Lewisham.

Workers at 26 district councils in Northern Ireland also participated in the action in big numbers, according to the unions. Refuse collection, leisure services, and street cleaning were among the main areas affected, along with Derry City airport.

Joe Donaghy of Unison said, "If the employers believe as they had stated that there was no support for the day of action, they have been proved totally wrong." The BBC reported that picket lines were in place at council offices, education and library boards, libraries, and numerous other areas.

Union leaders say that the July 17 action was "just the start" and further action will follow unless the demand for a 6 percent increase is met. Another one-day strike has been called for August 14.

The unions are demanding that the Labour government of Anthony Blair fund the wage increase. Blair’s government has maintained that the pay claim is a matter for local councils to sort out. Meanwhile, Brian Baldwin, chairman of the employers’ negotiating team, said, "There is no good reason to improve this pay offer."

One GMB official stated that the 3 percent offer from the employers amounted to an increase of less than 15p an hour (US 22 cents) for the lowest-paid workers.

Militant reporters joined Southwark council workers in south London at a rally of about 100, before marching from Peckham Library to Southwark town hall.

Unison Branch secretary John Mulrenan told the marchers that the strike "is the beginning, not the end of our campaign. We are no longer prepared to tolerate poverty pay, or to allow the Government to use low pay to subsidize public services."

Militant reporters later visited a picket line of around 30 people at Brixton Town Hall where there was a lively picket of council workers and their children, shouting and giving out leaflets in support of their demand for wage increases.

Other workers have been following these developments. Geoff Ellis, an official of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) told the BBC that the FBU would be balloting firefighters to take strike action over their pay claim.

At 8:00 p.m. on July 18, the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) members on the London Underground or "Tube" began a 24-hour strike. The stoppage proved to be solid, with only a few trains running, most stations closed, and pickets set up at depots. The Tube workers were striking over safety and to oppose steps toward privatization.

Meanwhile, TGWU members at the airport in Manchester walked out for two hours on July 20 in a long-running dispute over jobs. More two-hour stoppages are planned for July 30 and August 3.

In addition, workers have been taking action over pensions. On July 4 retiree organizations staged a mass lobby of the parliament buildings in London, demanding an immediate and substantial rise in the basic state pension, a restoration of the link with earnings, and an end to discrimination against women pensioners.

Six days later workers at the Caparo steel works in Tredegar, south Wales, began a work-to-rule action over company moves to end the workers’ "final salary pension" scheme--a pension based on a worker’s wages prior to retirement--and replace it with a "stakeholder" pension scheme which is dependent on the performance of investments in the stock market.

According to the union at the plant, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC), the action involves the withdrawal of the workers’ "goodwill and cooperation," and follows the imposition of an overtime ban at the plant the previous week.

ISTC general secretary Michael Leahy said that management at Tredegar, and at Caparo’s sister plant in Scunthorpe, had failed to listen to pleas not to scrap the workers’ final salary pension scheme. A majority of ISTC members at both plants had voted for strike action if necessary in defense of the pension scheme. Workers at a plant in Wreham have also been balloted.

"Our members at Caparo feel that they have no alternative but to escalate their industrial action," said Leahy.  
 
 
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