Today London Greens stood alongside unions in the largest one-day strike over pay by public sector employees since 2010.
London Green Party activist Charlie Kiss, left, with Green Islington Councillor Caroline Russell at the rally in Trafalgar Square
The Green Party pledged to support the employees’ right to strike and to picket peacefully in order to assert their right to fair wages and proper treatment. Public sector employees are facing unprecedented financial hardship with part-time and female employees the most affected under the Government’s ideological austerity agenda.
The strike saw more than one million workers protesting the Government policy of frozen and restricted pay and will include workers from the PCS, The National Union of Teachers, Unison, and others.
Thousands of people around the country gave up a day’s pay to express their unhappiness with the Coalition Government’s economic attack on public sector employees.
In a joint statement, London’s Green Councillors said:
“Public sector workers play a vital role in delivering the services that we all rely upon but severe government cuts have removed the funds needed to sustain the essential services they provide and has resulted in 1 in 4 local authority employees struggling on low wages. The sheer extent of the damage caused by the government’s economic programme is evident in the scale of the strikes taking place. That so many people feel moved to take action shows how frustrated and overburdened public sector workers are feeling.
“The London Green Party stands with those workers in sending a simple message to the government: we can’t go on like this. We can’t continue with rapacious cuts to the NHS, the closure of local children’s centres, and mounting queues at foodbanks. The government must hear the public’s message that cuts are hurting the people of Britain. An alternative economic strategy and an alternative future is possible and together with communities up and down the country we will be out promoting that message on Thursday.”