THE general secretary of the Trades Union Congress posed for photos with council workers on two Camden picket lines this morning (Thursday) and warned that hundreds of thousands of people are today sending a clear message to government that  “enough is enough”.

Frances O’Grady met staff from the housing and adult social care department in Bidborough House and Accessible Transport Solutions in York Way Depot, King’s Cross.

The TUC said Ms O’Grady has singled out Camden because of its strong unions and the large number of women expected to join the protest by council workers, teachers and civil servants.

She said: “Across the public sector workers are on strike today to say enough is enough. Year after year pay has failed to keep up with the cost of living. Public sector workers are on average more than £2,000 worse off under this government.

“Nearly half a million local government workers earn less than the living wage. But even as the economy starts to grow, ministers have told them that the pay cap will last until at least 2018. That is why the strikers deserve public support.”

Camden workers rallied outside the Town Hall in Judd Street before leaving to join the main march from the BBC headquarters in Regent Street and to hear the speakers in Trafalgar Square.

A joint industrial action by the GMB, PCS, Unite, Unison and NUT unions was called to make the maximum impact. The Fire Brigades Union also joined the day of protest bringing up the rear of the march with a fire truck carrying a dozen Camden Unison staff and blaring out the Progidy's 1990s Firestarter music anthem.

The best-received speaker was Jeremy Corbyn, the veteran MP for North Islington, who told a packed Trafalgar Square: "What our schools and colleges and our young people need to understand that our democracy comes from those people a long time ago in the peasants revolt, those Levellers in the English Civil War, the Chartists in the 19th century, the hunger marchers in the 1930s, the miners' strike in the 1980s, all those who stood for something better and good in our society. In our strength, in our unity we will win the argument, we will win the money on the wages, and the jobs. But above all we want a society that provides for the needs of all, not for the greed of the few.”

But the strike had the day before been described as “selfish” and “motivated by political aims” by Conservative politician Simon Marcus.

When asked what he thought about strikes, the candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn constituency said: “I don’t want a situation where local people have their lives made unnecessarily difficult for aims that are highly political. It is not a secret that teaching unions opposed the government’s reforms all the way, and young people have paid the price. That is not right.”

Labour candidate Tulip Siddiq has in the past said she supported strikes when workers felt they had been left with “no option”.

Camden Council leader Sarah Hayward, who said she was a member of Unite and had recently joined Unison, said she was exercising her right to withdraw her labour and would “only be available in emergencies”.

In Camden, 45 primary and secondary schools, most libraries and council-run services were shut but it was business as usual at the UCL Academy which had enough staff who are not NUT to keep the school open. Two newly-set-up free schools, also independent of the local authority, also managed to stay open. Of the 1,500 teachers in Camden, around 1,200 are in the National Union of Teachers, according to secretary of Camden NUT Andrew Baisley.

He said: “The strike was twice the size that we are expecting so we're pleased with that. The primary reason for the strike is teachers are working 60 hours a week, on average. But Michael Gove refuses to do anything about it. It is also about the whole Ofsted culture, which is sending teachers mad. You cannot do anything without writing it up ready for some kind of inspection.”

The Cabinet Office condemned the strike as “irresponsible”.