Rafferty fires chilly Glasgow rally with call to arms

The Unite union's Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty's fiery rhetoric warmed a freezing crowd in Glasgow as civil servants' union PCS staged a Britain-wide walkout.

PCS's 30,000 members in Scotland took to picket lines from job centres to Holyrood.

The dispute officially centres on public-sector workers' two-year pay freeze and major changes to pensions.

But speakers in St Enoch's square were unequivocal, saying they were battling "an all-out declaration of war" on the working class.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie - one of a handful of MSPs who refused to cross parliament picket lines - said he had hoped to be in the House opposing Trident's nuclear warheads.

"But I didn't want to be on the wrong side of this picket line," he said.

Sending solidarity greetings to the striking PCS members, Mr Rafferty told demonstrators the government was pitting the able-bodied and employed against the disabled and jobless.

"In the last year our banks have paid out £13 billion in bonuses.

"At the same time the Trussell Trust has opened 23 food banks in Scotland to cope with rising hunger and poverty.

"The brutal truth is that the cuts being imposed by this Con-Dem coalition amount to nothing less than an all-out declaration of war on our class."

Mr Rafferty said their response was clear.

"Whether it's civil disobedience, direct action, co-ordinated strike action, rolling strikes or indeed a general strike, we will continue our unstinting opposition to an austerity agenda that contains not one ounce of decency, fairness or social justice," he said to cheers.