UK Students Plan To Strike In Solidarity With Teacher Unions

British students are expected to walk out en masse later this month in solidarity with their teachers who are planning a nationwide strike to protest against the government’s pension reform plans.

The strike, set for June 30, will also include hundreds of thousands of other public sector employees and union members outraged by the coalition government proposals to raise the retirement age and increase the amount that workers must contribute to their pension schemes.

Demonstrators will also express their anger over the wider range of issues, including job cuts, pay freezes and other austerity measures.

The June 30 strike is expected to be the largest industrial action Britain has seen in many years, perhaps even decades going all the way back to the historic General Strike of 1926 which brought the country to a standstill.

Last year, thousands of students rallied against proposed tuition hikes.

Michael Chessum from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, one of the student organizations that participated in last year’s protests, told media: It was the student movement before Christmas that really kicked many of the major unions into action, and we'll be there again in force on 30 June. One of the successes of the student movement was that we abandoned passive, A-to-B marches in favor of direct action in the streets and on campuses. Mass strike action is the logical extension of that. We're not here to protest; we're here to actively resist.