UK Public Sector Workers Strike for Fair Pay

The Prime Minister's pledge to introduce tougher strike laws is "rhetoric", according to chief of one of the UK's largest trade unions.

"These are low paid workers who are saying we cannot take anymore and this is the start of our action to stand up for them and give them a voice," Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, told IBTimes UK.

"We are looking for a long term agreement [with local government employers], we're not looking for a sticky plaster, maybe half a per cent [pay deal] today, we want to sit down and talk about how we are going to restore local government salaries to be decent salaries.

"It's a far bigger issue than the knee jerk points made by Cameron."

"It cannot be just left to public service workers to pay the price for the [financial] crash."

His comments come as more than million public sector workers, including firefighters, teachers and civil servants, are expected to take industrial action in a row over pay.