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• An estimated third of schools will close due to strikes
  
• 62% of public sector workers don't think striking will solve pension dispute
• Strike action could last months, warns NUT leader Christine Blower"

*MKILETEWA HAPA NA FLORA LYIMO DESIGNER*

Thousands of teachers. court staff, Job Centre workers and passport controllers will fail to turn up to work today as the biggest strike for more than five years gets underway.
The public sector walkout, which will affect millions of ordinary people, started last night as Border Agency staff failed to turn up to work at airports, leading to lengthy queues at passport control.

Managers scrambled to fill spaces in an attempt to keep passengers on the move, but as airports become busier today airports are in danger of grinding to a standstill.
Workers insist it is unfair to ask them to work longer and contribute more to their pensions.

Members of the University and College Union pose for the media as they finalise preparations for their union strike. A third of British schools are expected to close amid the strike action,

But official figures showed that every working family in Britain is currently liable for £13,500 to cover teachers’ pensions alone – a 90 per cent increase in real terms over the past decade.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who is leading talks with the unions, vowed Britain 'will not buckle' in the face of industrial action"

And a poll of public sector workers showed that 62 per cent think striking will not make any positive difference to the pension dispute.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who is leading talks with the unions, vowed Britain ‘will not buckle’ in the face of industrial action and insisted the country’s ‘Dunkirk spirit’ would keep many schools and other services running.

‘I urge public sector workers to go to work today,’ Mr Maude said.

Civil servants who want to go to work, but whose children’s schools are closed, have been invited to bring them to the office, he revealed in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail. He suggested private companies should allow staff to do the same wherever feasible.
Government sources estimate that the industrial action will mean around a third of the country’s 24,000 schools will close today, with another third cancelling or merging some classes and the other third open as normal.

Even top private schools, including Eton and Wellington College, will be disrupted in today’s strikes as up to 6,000 of their teachers plan to walk out. 
Although no private schools have said they will close, almost all teachers working in fee-paying schools are members of the disputed Teachers’ Pension Scheme. As private-sector workers, they face expulsion from the scheme under the planned reforms.
However, private school heads have been advised that they are contractually obliged to fee-paying parents to keep their school open.

Elsewhere, only one in five civil servants is expected to strike, and contingency plans worked on in secret for months will be deployed to keep border controls and courts running.
Managers have been trained to step in to conduct airport passport checks, while courts will prioritise the most urgent cases.

Suggestions that air travellers should change their plans if possible were downplayed. Officials said some delays on arrival at airports were possible, but that departures would not be affected.

However, Christine Blower, the National Union of Teachers leader, has warned that industrial action could last for months, with various unions joining forces in further strike action if negotiations falter.
She told The Times: 'This is a co-ordinated campaign and we happen to be in the first phase of it. There's a significant amount of momentum behind this.

Ministers say public sector pensions will remain ‘among the very best available’, providing a guaranteed income for all employees – something enjoyed by very few in the private sector.

But they argue staff must pay more in contributions and work for longer before drawing their pension, as most private sector workers in schemes have had to do.

Members of UCU get ready for the strike. As well as a third of the country's 24,000 schools closing, another third are cancelling or merging some classes"

At Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron attacked Labour leader Ed Miliband, who failed to ask a single question about the walkout, accusing him of being ‘in the pocket of the unions’.

The scale of Britain’s unfunded public sector liabilities was dramatically illustrated by official figures showing the country faces a bill of more than £900billion over the decades ahead.

SCHOOL STRIKE'S MILITANT UNION BOSS MASTERMIND

Today's school strike has been masterminded by a militant union boss who has been accused of using her own daughter as a pawn to further her Left-wing ambitions.
Christine Blower, general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers, boasted in 1997 that she broke the law to keep her then 11-year-old daughter Sophie off school in protest at Government Sats tests.
A fellow union boss called her a ‘disgrace to the profession’ for using her own daughter to make a political point.
Former NUT boss Doug McAvoy once warned Miss Blower was ‘controlled’ by the extreme Left and was someone ‘for whom strike action is the only solution to problems’.
The Daily Mail revealed last week that despite her Left-wing posturing, she has pocketed a 10 per cent pay rise, taking her package to £140,000.
She was joined in plotting today’s strike by NUT president Nina Franklin, who boasts she is proud to be a union ‘dinosaur’.

That is three times the national debt of crisis-hit Greece – or more than the debts of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland combined.

Mr Maude said: ‘Many parents who have had to take the day off work to look after their children who should be in school today will be wondering: why are some teachers and civil servants striking now? Don’t they have better pensions than me?’

The minister said no public sector worker should consider striking when ‘serious talks’ about public service pension reform – set up at the request of the Trades Union Congress itself – are still ongoing.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, will warn at a rally in Exeter today that this is only the beginning of the strike chaos.
And Mark Serwotka, the militant boss of the Public and Commercial Services union, which masterminded today’s strike, says it is ‘possible’ that walkouts will continue for the next four years.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron attacked Labour leader Ed Miliband, who failed to ask a single question about the walkout, accusing him of being ‘in the pocket of the unions’.
Business leaders warned the strike action could have a ‘significant impact’ on industry,

Mike Cherry, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘The recovery remains in a fragile state and this action will have a wider impact on the economy as businesses lose productivity – something the economy simply cannot afford.’