TODAY council employees, health workers, teachers and civil servants from across Yorkshire were converging on in St Helen's Square, York, Dortmund Square in Leeds and outside the town hall in Sheffield to try to persuade the Government not to go ahead with its plans to cut public service pensions.

The changes mean nurses, doctors, firefighters, teachers, civil servants and other public sector workers will have less money to retire on and they will also have to go on working for much longer before they can claim their pensions.

The proposals are neither fair nor reasonable and are being imposed with little or no consultation.

The Regional TUC will be meeting with Yorkshire MPs in the near future to try to convince them of the need to protect public service pensions, and they have been invited to the rally.

I urge all public service workers from across this region to support our campaign, so we can show the government the depth of anger and resentment there is against its plans to change the pensions of hard-working public service workers.

For more information, visit www.tuc.org.uk/publicpensions.

Paul Jagger,

Regional secretary, TUC,

Friends Provident House,

South Parade, Leeds.

Updated: 11:06 Friday, February 18, 2005