THOUSANDS of public sector workers marched in protest at pension reforms yesterday as the biggest strike for a generation caused widespread disruption throughout the North-East and North Yorkshire.

Nearly 8,000 union members took to the streets of Gateshead and Newcastle, while more than 1,000 protestors demonstrated in Middlesbrough.

An estimated 300,000 workers in the region took part in the industrial action, with Unison claiming the strike was supported by 95 per cent of its regional membership of about 78,000.

Picket lines were formed outside council offices, hospitals and Government agencies.

The strike caused the closure of more than 600 schools in the region. Council services were disrupted, with bins going unemptied, phone calls unanswered, and leisure centres and libraries closed.

On Tyneside, campaigners gathered at Gateshead Civic Centre, before making their way to a rally at Spiller’s Wharf, Newcastle.

Kevan Rowan, TUC Northern regional secretary, said the unions had “shown their strength”.

He added: “This is about showing two things – explaining about the injustice to public sector workers and low paid workers across the board, and secondly it’s to demonstrate the strength of feeling there is on this issue.”

Addressing the cheering crowd, Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, accused the Government of “shifting the balance of blame” for the austerity to the working man and woman.

In Darlington, more than 100 teachers, council workers and civil servants from The Student Loans Company, together with pensions staff from Mowden Hall, picketed locations across the town, including the town hall, the Dolphin Centre and Central House.

In Durham City, drivers sounded their car horns in Southfield Way, where Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union pickets from the Land Registry gathered on the other side of the road to Unison colleagues at the University Hospital of North Durham.

One picket turned out just after 4am to put out the PCS banners. while a short distance away at County Hall, headquarters of Durham County Council, the Unison/GMB protest began at about 6am and continued until after the building’s doors were shut at 9.30am.

A small group of third year Durham University students joined PCS members from the Passport Office who demonstrated and leafleted in the city’s Market Place.

Waving placards, sounding horns and chanting slogans including, “They say cut back, we say fight back”, the march in Middlesbrough made its way from the Bottle of Notes sculpture, in Centre Square, to the shopping precinct, in Linthorpe Road, where strikers were entertained by live music.

Denise Ward, Unison joint branch secretary at Teesside University, told the crowds: “Let the bankers pay for the deficit through a financial transaction tax, not the workers.”

Many of North Yorkshire’s striking workers joined a demonstration through York City Centre, which began at Clifford’s Tower and snaked through the city to York Minster.

A picket line was formed outside the Friarage hospital, in Northallerton.

Chairman of Unison’s South Tees branch, Stewart Bain, said: “Pensions are the biggest issue for us at the moment. It’s basically working longer hours for less.

Everybody suffers.”

There were pickets outside the offices of North Yorkshire Probation Service.

However, health bosses said impact on the region’s NHS was minimal.

Officials from NHS North-East said an estimated 13 per cent of staff were absent from work and all services ran as near to “business as usual” as possible.