November 30

As a member of the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU), today I was on strike, alongside most public sector unions, on what is the largest day of industrial action that the UK has seen for decades.

The dispute is mainly over pensions, although the media and government seem determined to construct it as an ideological battle between left and right, and to drive a divide between private sector taxpayers, and public sector employees, as if folk in the public sector were not also taxpayers.

Today's image portrays the mass rally in Bradford's Centenary Square, where the different unions assembled after a few hours picket duty at our various places of work. The response of passers-by at the UCU picket at the university was very supportive. The forest of banners and placards show representatives from a host of unions, from the fire brigades, teachers, nurses, civil servants and more. We filled Centenary Square, rallied and dispersed peacefully, all without any police presence.

I don't expect everyone reading this to agree with the action, but this journal is a record of my days, and this is what my day was today.

two million people ~ making a stand together ~ leaves have left their trees