It was not quite light and rather chilly this morning, but Lynn Smyth was already stationed outside NHS Brighton and Hove, where she works, for her first ever picket line duty.
She had come to the back of the building to the car-park entrance to hand leaflets to cars entering.
“It’s quite an easy-going picket here. I said I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” she laughs, a little tentative but determined.
As branch chair Lynn has been highly effective in informing her colleagues about the pensions dispute, which has led to many new members.
One member, who didn’t want to be named, said: “I only joined the union because of the strike. Until UNISON told us about our pensions, we didn’t really realise what it all meant. Now I think it’s time we actually started stamping our feet and saying we’re not putting up with it. This is just the start.”
Terry Blair-Stevens, picketing at the front entrance to the NHS trust says: “I’ve been working in the NHS for 22 years. I chose to work here rather than in private health partly because I’m passionate about public services, but also because my understanding at the time was that the pay wouldn’t be as good, but I would make up for it by having a slightly better pension at the end of it. I feel now that my rights are being undermined.
“I think the strike will have an impact. Through strength of numbers we’ll affect public awareness and the government would be foolish to ignore that. But it will be a hard-fought battle.”
Less than a mile down the road, Paul Rothwell was standing on the traffic island on the Lewes Road outside Brighton University where he works.
“We live in extraordinary times and it calls for an extraordinary response,” he says. “After what happened yesterday, with the autumn statement, it’s clear that this government’s agenda is an attack on public services. If we don’t take a stand now we’ll take hit after hit.”
Like many of his colleagues, Mr Rothwell was moved to anger by chancellor George Osborne’s announcement yesterday, which included a 1% cap on public sector pay rises for two years after the end of current freeze next year.
“I’m 45 and this reminds me of my teens, the days of the old Tory government. It’s an assault on certain sectors in society. There’s very little they can take because they’ve already had everything. But to be part of today means there is hope. The worst thing we can do is nothing.”