UK public sector workers strike work

Thousands of public sector workers in the UK are staging a strike over pensions, in what according to union leaders, would be the biggest walkout for a generation.

Schools and hospitals have been widely hit and courts and government offices are among disrupted services.

However, prime minister David Camron has dismissed the strike as a "damp squib".

Unions remain opposed to government plans to make their members pay more and work longer to earn their pensions.

The strike has crippled normal life across Britain. According to Department for Education's figures over half (58 per cent) of England's 21,700 state schools are closed, even as 13 per cent remain partly shut.

In Scotland, 30 of the 2,700 council-run schools are said to be open, according to local authority body Cosla, while Wales has seen 80 per cent of schools shut. In Northern Ireland, according to three of the five education library boards, over 50 per cent of 1,200 schools remain closed.