2 million strike in Britain over pension changes
World | Updated today at 07:10 AM
LONDON (AFP) - British unions claimed that up to two million public sector workers went on strike on Wednesday over changes to their pensions after the government responded to slashed growth forecasts with fresh spending cuts.
In what unions called the biggest walkout in decades, thousands of schools were shut, hospitals operated with minimum staffing levels and local authorities were paralysed, although the government contested the unions' figures.
Thousands of workers marched through central London and Manchester, north-west England, during the 24-hour strike. However, fears of long delays at London's Heathrow airport, one of the world's busiest air passenger hubs, failed to materialise as most immigration officials turned up for work.
Ferry ports and cross-Channel rail services linking Britain to continental Europe also operated largely as normal. The strike is the biggest test so far of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-Liberal Democrat government, which sparked the unions' fury by making public sector workers pay more into their pensions and work longer.
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