THOUSANDS OF Edinburgh’s public sector workers joined together to march in protest on Wednesday, in a procession that filled the length of the Royal Mile. Demonstrating against government proposals to change the pension system of public sector workers, the action coincided with public sector strikes and marches across the country.

Between 1.3 and two million union members took part in the walkouts, and the Edinburgh protests involved between 7,500 and 10,000 participants. 32 unions took part in the action.

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray visited the protest before the main march started.

He told The Student, “Public sector workers have already made huge contributions to trying to deal with the economic crisis; they’ve seen their pay frozen for a number of years, we’ve seen tens of thousands of public sector jobs go – and to ask them to pay more for their pensions and get less is taking it too far – it’s not fair.

“The alternative is negotiated reforms to pensions, if they’re needed. The general point is that the Tory-Liberal government are cutting back on the public sector too fast and too deep and as a result – we saw this yesterday in the Autumn statement – actually, they’re making things worse by driving growth out of the economy and raising the prospect of a second recession.”

The march started from Johnston Terrace and continued down the Royal Mile, where it stopped outside the Scottish Parliament for a rally.

Rodney Bickerstaffe, former president of Unison and the UK National Pensioners Convention, spoke to the assembled demonstrators from the top of a double-decker bus.

Slamming the government’s plans, he said, “it’s hurting, it’s hurting already, and it’s going to get much worse. I don’t know about you, but I’m angry.

“If they think you’ll go home, that this is a one-off, then they’ll stamp on you. If they think you’re a fool, they’ll stamp on you.

They say we’re greedy – well who was it out in the cold and the fog a few weeks ago, picking up the wreckage and the bits of flesh off the motorway? They say we’re not caring – but they wouldn’t know caring if it sat on them.

They say we’re not patriotic – but what about the bankers who threatened to leave the country if their taxes went up?

“They say we’re all in this together. Well we have a phrase in South Yorkshire – ‘all in this my posterior’. This may not be Tahrir Square in Cairo, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

"If you don’t stand up to bullies, they’ll walk all over you.”

Union representatives from the Universities and Colleges Union, Trade Union Congress, Prospect and Education Institute Scotland (EIS) and Unison gave speeches to the crowd. The President of the EIS, Alan Munro, said “I am proud to march alongside my union colleagues today in Edinburgh … to hear the privileged say that our pension system is unsustainable is sickening; we work hard with the guarantee of a pension at the end of our service. We are fighting for dignity and comfort in retirement.”