Union leader threatens public sector strikes to disrupt London Olympics

Employees should consider using strike action to disrupt the Olympics as part of their campaign against the government's spending cuts, the leader of Britain's biggest union has declared.

In an interview with the Guardian, Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite, said attacks on public sector workers were "so deep and ideological" that targeting the Games would be justified. The call came as the RMT union increased the pressure on the capital's mayor, Boris Johnson, over delivering a strike-free event by declaring a formal dispute after rejecting an Olympics pay deal for London Underground staff.

"If the Olympics provide us with an opportunity, then that's exactly one that we should be looking at," said McCluskey. He also said that any attempt by ministers to tighten anti-strike legislation would lead to unions deliberately breaking the law. Government plans to cut the value of public sector pensions prompted the biggest strike for three decades in November last year. Although some unions have scaled back their opposition to the proposals, McCluskey said industrial action would "drag on and on" and that it would involve "all forms of different protest and action".

That included possibly hitting the Olympics, he said: "The attacks that are being launched on public sector workers at the moment are so deep and ideological that the idea the world should arrive in London and have these wonderful Olympic Games as though everything is nice and rosy in the garden is unthinkable.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/28/olympics-london-union-strike-threat