Colchester Labour | Labour backs local public sector strike

Labour backs local public sector strike

Colchester Labour Party has leant its support to the hundreds of public sector workers who joined the public sector strikes in the town.

Local Councillors Tim and Julie Young and Colchester Labour Party Jordan Newell joined local Labour activists and Labour Students for the University of Essex for a march through Colchester town centre ahead of a rally at the Town Hall.

Colchester Labour Party Jordan Newell said:

"Like millions of public sector workers across the UK, I am on strike today. We are striking for a fair deal for public sector pay and pensions. I don't want to strike and have always viewed striking as a last resort, but yesterday the Chancellor announced a further shameful and unfair pay restraint on an already hard-pressed public sector, pushing a resolution to the current dispute further and further away. The Government must listen to the millions of public sector workers who will strike today and accept the need to negotiate a fairer deal, sooner rather than later."

Labour Leader Ed Miliband MP said he had sympathy for those affected by the industrial action, public sector workers feel they have been put in an "impossible position".

Mr Miliband laid the blame on the coaliton, accusing them of "refusing to negotiate properly" and "ramping up the rhetoric" in the dispute over proposed reforms to public sector pensions that has sparked what unions claim to be the largest strike in the UK since 1979.

"I'm afraid the government has got to accept responsibilty, it is their failure that has led to the strikes today," Mr Miliband said