Sheffield laid claim to one of the most unusual pickets of the day, with a street party protest at one of the city’s busiest road junctions.
Gathered near Edmunds Road NHS Crisis Centre, strikers joined with their partners and children to generate a party atmosphere as they danced away to loud music from a makeshift sound system in the back of a vehicle.
But, alongside the fun, they also got on with the serious business of handing out leaflets to the public and were greeted with many honks of support from passing cars, buses and lorries.
The whole event was co-ordinated by mental health nurse and UNISON steward Mark Wilson, whose four-year-old son Sol was among the dancers.
“We wanted it to be a party atmosphere,” explained Mr Wilson, who is a DJ in his spare time and has been “going round doing strike meetings all over the city, playing union songs such as Woody Guthrie.”
By late morning, Sheffield’s UNISON pickets were heading for the city centre for one of the lunchtime and afternoon rallies which have been taking place at cities and large towns across the UK.
In Yorkshire, the rallies ranged from Huddersfield and Halifax in the west of the county to Hull and Scarborough on the east coast, and included events in Leeds, Bradford, Rotherham, Doncaster and Keighley.