Be grateful you’ve got a job at all, strikers told

Mr Cartwright, 31, of the Landsdowne estate, in the Sharrow area of the city, clambered onto one of the fountains outside Sheffield City Hall to make his point, calling the strikers “Tory bashers”.

He said he had been looking for a job for more than a year but had only managed to work for a fortnight during the past 12 months, before trying to wrench a placard from the hands of one of the protesters.

Organisers estimated that around 1,500 people joined the march around Sheffield city centre yesterday which began and ended in Barkers Pool with a series of speakers including Tim Roache from the Yorkshire and Humber TUC.

He blamed the “money-grabbing dodgy dealers in the banks” for the situation now facing public sector workers, and called for union members to “demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate until we get an election and get this lot out”.

Lesley Ward, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: “The Government says there is a massive hole in our pension pot, but they won’t show us the figures. Why not? Because there isn’t a massive hole in our pension pot. It’s a big fib.”

Marion Lloyd, a PCS official who works at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills in Sheffield city centre, led the rally, which also included songs by the Sheffield Socialist Choir.

She said: “We are very pleased with how the strike has gone – our offices are empty today and they will be again because the Government is not negotiating with us.”