[] [BTBBT Daily - 12/1]UK public sector in biggest walk-out for decades

-->
PUBLIC sector workers in the UK staged what was billed as the biggest strike in decades yesterday to protest against government plans to restructure their pensions in an effort to reduce the cost to taxpayers.

The government plans to make public sector pensions less generous in the years ahead. The reforms are part of a package of austerity measures designed to get a grip on the country's high borrowing levels.

The Department for Education estimated at least half of the nation's schools were closed because of the one-day strike. The action was also expected to lead to longer waits for visitors needing immigration checks, though London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports reported no unusual delays.

The government estimated that 60,000 non-urgent operations, outpatient appointments, tests and follow-up appointments were postponed in England, while in Scotland at least 3,000 operations and thousands more hospital appointments were affected.

The strike was billed as the biggest labor action in Britain for decades, certainly since the so-called Winter of Discontent in 1979, which presaged the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.

Liverpool police officer Russ Aitken said: "I feel angry I am paying a 50 percent increase in pension contributions and I feel angry that I am going to have to work longer and at the end of it get less.

"Hopefully the government will change its position. The situation was made by the government and the bankers, and the people who are asked to pay the price are public sector workers."

Treasury chief George Osborne said the government would not budge. "The strike is not going to achieve anything," he said. "It is only going to make our economy weaker and potentially cost jobs."

On Tuesday, Osborne painted a gloomy picture of the nation's economy. The official forecast in March that the economy would grow by 2.5 percent next year has been marked down to a feeble 0.7 percent.