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Education secretary Michael Gove (pictured looking his best) was absolutely correct yesterday to highlight the inconvenience caused to families by public sector workers who will strike in their millions tomorrow. 

It is encouraging that a Conservative minister has such foresight to realise that families may indeed be inconvenienced.

For, if action is not taken now, in decades to come it will rest upon the shoulders of the children of tomorrow's strikers to bear the considerable financial onus of helping their parents whose public sector pensions will have dwindled in value by so much that they will be worth squat.

That is what he meant by "inconvenience", wasn't it?

Why social care should strike tomorrow

Picture: Rex Features

As a Conservative, it is natural that Cabinet secretary Francis Maude (pictured getting the beers in) would speak out against the public sector workers' pensions strike on 30 November. 

Last week he suggested that, instead of taking to the streets, employees engaged in a nice a cup of tea and a sit-down for 15 minutes. Today he has been counting the cost to the economy of the one-day stoppage: £500m, he estimates. Frightening.

What, then, is his opinion of last week's sale of Northern Rock by chancellor George Osborne at a loss to the taxpayer of between £400m and £650m, depending on whose figures you believe?

If Maude's £500m estimate of the cost of next week's action is accurate, that makes a cumulative hit to the nation's balance sheet of about £1bn in a couple of weeks, half of it due to the government's intransigence over pensions.

With accountancy management as exemplary as that, the Coalition should now perhaps review its willingness to blame Gordon Brown and the Eurozone for the nation's economic woes.

Oh, and just to get you in the right frame of mind for next week's pensions strike, the Daily Mirror reports that Maude is in line for a £731,000 retirement pot.

As if you needed any encouragement...

Picture: Rex Features

Many public sector employees, including social workers, can only dream of the prospect of a 2.3% pay rise. That is the going rate, according to figures from IDSPay.co.uk, published on Left Foot Forward in a blog by Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke.

With inflation hovering around 5%, October's figure is a comparatively paltry sum - yet one that is lower than the 2.4% average awarded in September.

The publication of these statistics could not have been better timed. This week, the High Pay Commission reported that top earners have enjoyed - and "enjoyed" truly is the word - a piss-taking rise of 4,000% over the past 30 years as the average wage increased just threefold.

Mind you, it didn't deter headhunter Dr Heather McGregor from telling Radio 4's Today programme that anyone who thought the disparity unfair ought to consider moving to Cuba.

A more enlightening piece of analysis from a person who holds a doctorate is difficult to imagine...

...Enter Dr Vince Cable (pictured, thinking), seemingly intent on rubbing the entire deposits of a salt mine into a gaping wound before adding a squeeze of lemon. The business secretary has concluded that employers are finding it too difficult to shed staff and employment law should be reformed to make it easier for them, the poor lambs.

Two-and-a-half million people might disagree with his assessment of employment law, of course.

His call prompted Unite to describe the proposals as a "charter for bullies and rogue employers".

So next week, when trade union members strike about proposed changes to public sector pensions, it may be worth them also bearing in mind the signals sent from those who very much have - like the top earners and their apologists - and those who want to remove what workplace rights you have - like Cable.

Because when the pensions fight is won, another battle will inevitably start.

Picture: Rex Features

Someone ought to have told the TUC that the inviolable Cliff Richard (pictured discovering atheism) had a god-given right to an annual crack at the Christmas number one. 

Short of The Pogues coming up with something half-decent, I hope the nation's affections will turn to a single by a newly formed band, The Workers.

Under the auspices of the TUC, they have released a remix of the Canned Heat classic, Let's Work Together, to mark the day of action by public sector employees on 30 November.

One of the stars of the popular beat combo is Margaret Greer, a social worker from Enfield, north London, who once auditioned for The X Factor. She didn't appear on the programme so clearly she is talented.

Greer is quoted on the TUC website as saying: "If we don't take action we are walking blindly into poverty. Every worker should be striking as our future - and the future of young people - depend on it."

So why not buy Let's Work Together? With some judicious downloading, you can time it just right to deny Sir Cliff his annual pilgrimage to the top of the charts.

You need not feel (too) guilty about it either: 40p of each sale goes to Age UK.

Industrial action and the Conservatives are not natural bedfellows, notwithstanding (pictured drinking water) education secretary Michael Gove's appearance on a picket line in a former life as a journalist. 

What his current colleagues think of Militant Mike's picketing past can only be the subject of conjecture (youthful impetuosity, perhaps?), but at least he stuck it out longer than the 15 minutes to which Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has suggested the public sector unions limit themselves on 30 November.

In a gesture that could be described as avuncular - or patronising - Maude pointed out that, by nipping out for only a quarter of an hour, staff could avoid being docked pay.

It sounded like he was recommending a coffee break, a sip-in perhaps.

I may be making assumptions but I cannot imagine Maude's boss, Dave Cameron, being too impressed with the prospect of our nation's public servants heading for the canteen or a coffee shop to sit down with a hot drink when they could be behind their desks.

Why? Well, on Friday, the prime minister made known his disapproval of protests that were not done "on two feet".

I will not nitpick this particular use of words, but already this year the students have tried the two-feet option, as have thousands of trade unionists, something, by a process of elimination, Cameron ought to support.

We all know he didn't but the question has to be asked: which protests DOES he support?

Picture: Rex Features

Labour leader Ed Miliband came in for some flak two months ago when he told trade union members caught up in the local government pensions dispute that they should desist from striking during negotiations.

Whether you agreed with Miliband or disagreed with him, it was a point of view honestly held (I hope). But it was also a standpoint that one could imagine the employers nodding along to, much like those toy dogs that were once the must-have accessory for rear parcel shelves of Ford Cortinas. 

If Miliband's way is the key to a solution, what explanation could Doncaster Council possibly have for sending Section 188 redundancy notices to staff in the middle of talks about the authority's proposals to cut pay and introduce inferior terms and conditions?

The talks were planned to conclude on 14 November but Doncaster, in what looks suspiciously like an act of sabotage, is attempting to force the hands of 10,000 staff, or even cynically provoke industrial action in order to dismiss them more easily and re-employ the chosen few as it sees fit.

If it is wrong to take industrial action in the middle of negotiations, as Miliband believes, then it is equally wrong for employers to threaten thousands of staff with their livelihoods during talks that ostensibly are being held to seek a solultion.

The only message it sends is that the employer, in this case Doncaster Council, has no intention of thrashing out a deal.

Ed Miliband may wish to clarify that statement he made to the TUC conference. 

Picture: Rex Features

The care workers' equal pay dispute in Sheffield looks to be over with the city council agreeing to recompense about 1,100 staff, a group that also includes cleaners and dinner ladies. 

Sheffield, armed with a team of lawyers, was threatening to take the case to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the employees but has now backed down, perhaps in the interests of the public purse as much as any moral propriety.

However, we may not have heard the last of this.

Although the Local Government Group does not expect a wave of similar settlements to follow - "we do not believe it will have a far-reaching effect", said a spokesperson - Unison, which represented the staff, may have other ideas.

General secretary Dave Prentis told The Guardian: "This decision has implications for around 400,000 other women's cases across the country."

Whether other local authorities will dig in where Sheffield left off we will have to wait and see.

Picture: Rex Features

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has let Ed Miliband off the hook with his comment that he does not expect the Labour leader to join striking workers on the picket lines this autumn.

Phew, that must be a relief for Ed, who is unlikely to have had any plans of that nature, having spent the recent TUC conference dissing the expected action over public sector pension reforms.

It is a reflection of the times that a Labour leader distances himself not only from industrial action but any hint of placard-waving. But in a spasm of compassion he at least showed that he understood why public sector workers are angry. Well judged, Ed. 

Sadly, if something is wrong - and the pensions changes are very wrong indeed because state payments are unlikely to make up the shortfall without a huge injection of public spending - industrial action is the only mechanism left when there is no hint of a climbdown or a mutually acceptable compromise.

Miliband's poll ratings today make unhappy reading for a leader in his first year in opposition to a coalition government that was cobbled together on the strength of the respective party leaders' common chemistry - to wit, their parents' choice of school for their sons.

So one would think that his speech at the Labour Party conference this afternoon would be crucial in enhancing his reputation.

Sure, he is expected to include a comment about rewarding people who contribute to society, but even die-hard Tories would find it difficult to disagree with that principle.

Social housing is also on the agenda, with Miliband expected to state that people with jobs should gain preference on waiting lists. Where in the pecking order that leaves those who have lost their jobs due to the misdeeds of City speculators I do not know. More work needed on that one, methinks.

But what we do know is that this autumn could see the biggest workforce stoppage since the general strike in 1926.

And at some point, Ed Miliband, having today spoken about rewarding people who have contributed to life, will have to offer something more than sympathy. 

Picture: Rex Features

Much has been spoken and written this week about the gender pay gap at executive level and the unlikelihood of it closing for at least 100 years.

So it is with impeccable timing that a pay battle at the other end of the scale - involving care workers and dinner ladies employed by Sheffield Council - will arrive at the doors of the Supreme Court next month. 

It will be the first time the court has ruled on sex discrimination involving pay.

Trade union Unison says the ruling could affect up to 40,000 cases.

The care workers' case started in an employment tribunal and centres on productivity bonuses paid to gardeners and street cleaners, most of whom are male.

In the most recent hearing, at the Court of Appeal, the ruling went in favour of the dinner ladies and care workers, most of whom are female.

Sheffield feels the bonuses have nothing to do with gender but are paid to increase productivity.

The Supreme Court awaits...

Despite changes to employment law since 1997, trade union members still have fewer rights to take industrial action than they had in 1906, according to the TUC. The past week has seen those rights diminish further with Plymouth Council's derecognition of Unison.

It means the union will no longer have to be consulted on pay, redundancies and contract changes, allowing the council to drive through as fait accomplis as draconian terms and conditions as it so wishes. If employees do not approve, well, they can just clear off and work elsewhere. Isn't that the message?

The move by Plymouth is reminiscent of the 1980s. It was in 1986 that Rupert Murdoch was allowed - legally, it turned out - to derecognise the print unions at his Wapping plant (pictured), setting in train years of declining terms and conditions and below-inflation pay rises for employees in many sectors, not just the media. 

The public sector, in the main, has been exceptional in honouring a right that the rest of western Europe has long taken for granted: that of collective bargaining and consultation. I like to think of it as democracy in action, inconvenient as it is to employers.

Recent history tells us that, after derecognition, the employer will cherry pick staff and offer them inducements to forego union representation, thus driving a wedge between the favoured few and the rest of the bargaining unit.

But within a couple of years that apparent generosity will have dissipated as the iron fist replaces the velvet glove.

Suddenly the employee will be isolated, forced to capitulate to demands that would not seem out of place in Edwardian times. Job security? What's that? Workplace bullying? Just wait.

There is one thing about which we can be certain: Plymouth will be the testing ground for local government employers everywhere and it will have the support of the government as Murdoch did in the 1980s. If the council pulls this off - and we are in early days - others will follow.

Picture: Rex Features