Lights, camera, (day of) action!

I'm sure the strike will be heavily blipped today and rightly so. I know it's disrupting a lot of services and giving parents some headaches, what with the majority of schools closed, but the disruption caused by the ongoing decimation of public and voluntary sector services is going to have a far more wide-reaching impact on all our lives.

At a time when bankers' and chief executives' salaries and bonuses are on the rise again and when the richest 1% have seen their income increase by 30% in the past year it is important to take a stand (or have a march!) to voice anger at the injustice of making millions of us work longer (if we can find a job...) for less, whilst paying off a deficit that we didn't create.

My team all took a 20% pay cut this financial year (because of the impact of Local Authority cuts on our contract) and it's been tough. I like my job and want to hang on to it if I can but the best I can hope for come April is that my situation will stay the same and that I'll continue to struggle on a reduced income. The worst - and it's a very real possibility - is that I won't have a job at all. It's not as if alternative jobs are easy to come by and there's a lot of competition out there. Over half my colleagues were made redundant in March and many have still not found employment. In Liverpool, staff are disappearing from the Primary Care Trust (before it disappears itself...) and the City Council faster than I can keep track of and the community groups and charities which might once have been there to pick up some of the fallout have been forced to close or downsize considerably because of the same contract or grant cuts which affected my job. Things are looking seriously grim and most of my friends are as scared as I am about their futures and the futures of those who come after us.

I went on the march in Birkenhead this morning. When I asked this young marcher for permission to take his picture he was overcome by a sudden attack of shyness but his mum helped him out!