SIR – Today I will be one among millions striking to maintain decent pension provision, proud to be part of a union prepared to stand up for its members.

As usual, the Government wants to divide today's working classes by setting private against public sector workers and 'blue' against 'white' collar.

The important fact is that our private sector pension provision is among the meanest in Europe.

The big supermarkets and banks are run by small cliques of directors who set the remuneration policy of their companies; it is up to them to put more into the pension pots of ordinary employees out of often-mountainous profits and it is up to their workers to take united action to match ours.

Mandated by a handful of huge corporate shareholders and charged with powers to set their own pay and pensions,

I don't think the directors' mandate (0.001 per cent!) compares too well, even with the 23 per cent of all voters who voted Conservative in 2010, let alone the 92 per cent of NUT members who have endorsed our strike.

Quentin Deakin, Vice-President, Bradford NUT, Newark Road, Crossflatts