I joined the union and was active in strikes, joining the picket lines on a couple of occasions, then the penny dropped. Whatever we did the Government simply imposed a settlement based on the ‘lower third quartile’ or summat, whatever that was. Also, the public perception of Civil Servants was quite negative so we had no external support. We were toothless so after about 10 years I awarded myself a pay increase and left the union. I was never an activist, just someone looking jealously at the private sector in the days when their pay and pensions looked very generous. All that changed of course after Thatcher when the private pension crisis hit and wages stopped improving. Then we became even more unpopular because we still had final salary schemes (now gone) and managed to get a small pay increase every year. I eventually took the most generous offer I ever had when I took early retirement at 53, so it wasn’t all bad.