Quote from a piece in today's Guardian:

"Today local authority employers gather to ponder this week's strike. There was no doubt it was a success, not just getting out hundreds of thousands of workers but in a wave of public sympathy. Sky TV polled 75% support, local phone-ins were swamped, people honked their horns at the pickets. Who would not be touched by armies of women cleaners, carers and dinner ladies earning less than £5 an hour?"

The answer to that rhetorical question, of course, is "the men who control the main political parties, government or opposition!"

The scandal of agencies workers at double the cost being used to fill vacancies is the key thing, and most people aren't aware of how much money is wasted in that way. And it isn't that the agency workers get significantly more, if any more at all - the profit is creamed off by the people running the agencies, who are often people who learnt all about this kind of racket while working in local government jobs themselves.

But isn't it curious how that name Blair crops up again in an industrial struggle:

They say in Harlan County,
There are no neutrals there.
You'll either be a union man,
Or a thug for J.H. Blair.

Someone should rewrite the verses from Which Side Are You On. No, it's not thugs these days (though it was under Thatcher), nothing so blatant, but all the same, it's pretty clear which side they are on.