SIR – An opinion poll commissioned by BBC News before the national pensions strike suggested that 61 per cent of people believe public sector workers are justified in going on strike over pension changes, therefore Mark Garnier MP was wrong when he wrote in the Worcester News that “most people have little or no sympathy” with people on strike (December 1).
Indeed, I observed a lot of support for the strike in Worcester.
Contrary to what Mr Garnier believes, the pensions are affordable, as concluded by the National Audit Office last year.
He also wrote, without quoting sources, that “public sector pensions pay out about three times as much as a private sector worker will expect in retirement”.
Lord Hutton wrote in his report on pensions commissioned by the Government that he regards public sector pensions as far from “gold-plated”.
As Brian Reade wrote in the Daily Mirror the day after the strikes, the Government is exploiting the national debt in order to “smash the public sector, creating a pool of cheap, unprotected labour which will make it easier to privatise.”
I completely agree that going on strike is “the last legal resort to protect an unprecedented onslaught on future standards of living.”
NEIL LAURENSON
Worcester Green Party
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