I had a distinct feeling of nausea on reading your report "County is braced for strike chaos" (The Argus, March 28).

Last year, the unions engaged in demands enabling ever-increasing hordes of state employees to retire at 60 at an unaffordable cost to the taxpayer.

Now public sector workers and their unions are at it again as they seek to protect antiquated agreements few of us had any prior knowledge of that will provide goldplated, index-linked pensions underwritten by taxpayers and insulated from commercial reality.

Reports reveal attempts have been made to compare the issues with the Great Strike of 1926.

Eighty years ago, the working classes were facing physical hardship, with coal miners at the forefront battling against savage wage cuts and longer hours.

Today the issue concerns outrageous pension privilege and is nothing to do with trade union goals of solidarity and equality.

In recent years, a discriminating Chancellor has succeeded in decimating what was probably one of the best pension schemes in the world, with the result that thousands of honest, hard-working people have been deprived of their entitlements and will have to work past their agreed retirement ages.

There is no doubt this action will lead to further hardship in the community at a time when there are continuous reports of our so-called "civilised society" being unable to provide care for the old and treating them as second-class citizens.

Certainly there is a case for reviewing the escalating problems associated with longevity which have a bearing on pensions - such matters concern all of us.

In the meantime, why should state employees be treated as special cases?

-Neil Kelly, Hove