Farfahinne

from the Socialist Worker...

Hundreds of thousands of workers are gearing up to take on Gordon Brown's pay curbs.

Up to 650,000 local government workers in the Unison and Unite unions are to take two days of strike action on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.

Teaching assistants, school cleaners and cooks, social workers, librarians, refuse workers, sports center staff and many more will go on strike after rejecting a 2.45 percent pay offer.

The workers are demanding a rise of 6 percent or 50p an hour, whichever is higher. One third of local government workers earn less than £6.50 an hour.

Some 1,800 civil service workers in the PCS union at the Driving Standards Agency will also join them for the first day of the strike.

This is the latest stage in the battle against Labour's determination to keep wages down.

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