They're on the steps of a building which is the symbol of the town's civic pride and Progress motto – but feel they're going backwards, not forwards.

A 48-hour strike is big step to take today. This is not the age of I'm Alright Jack, one out, all out, down tools, comrade, and where's the nearest pub, Brother Militant.

This is the age of being glad to have a job, any job, even if it doesn't keep the wolves from the door.

Last month 15,500 more people claimed Jobseekers' Allowance, the biggest monthly rise in 15 years.

That's before the housing slump hits the dole queue. The UK's biggest housebuilders made 5,000 workers redundant in recent days. In the three months to May, 118,000 jobs went, up 10,000 on the previous quarter.

Strike action is not taken lightly by Unison's members, ordinary men and women struggling to pay mortgages and other bills.

Yet around 3,000 have walked out locally, shutting 16 or so schools to pupils, closing libraries, council offices running on near empty, affecting vital services.

And once the uncollected rubbish, in Fylde and Wyre, starts to stink, public sympathy may begin to sink.

But Unison leaders stress we're all singing from the same hymn sheet – a lament of low pay, not enough cash to pay all the bills, and dire warnings.

Reviews threaten further cutbacks in staff and pay. One union rep tells me one local worker has already been asked to take an £8,000 pay cut. Another warns: "Elsewhere pay reviews have led to £2,000 cuts in salary."

They argue the proposed pay rise of 2.45 per cent, which forced the walk-out, is another cut, coming on top of 10 years of below-inflation pay rises.

It is, says Pete Marsden, full-time trade unionist, former Wakefield journalist, "the last straw."

Those with long memories hark back to the '70s rather than the '90s for the spectre of the recession haunting us now.

"We keep hearing there's no money, but the Government has just spent £4 billion on two new aircraft carriers. In the last three years local government efficiency savings have clawed back £3.5 billion. It's always the lowest paid council workers asked to make sacrifices."

With half a million workers out yesterday, more to come today, Unison's is one of the biggest strikes to hit Britain in years.

General Secretary Dave Prentis says anger has been fuelled by Tuesday's inflation figures.

He hails the industrial action as one of the greatest displays of public outrage since the General Strike of 1926.

The TUC called that one, in support of striking coal miners in northern England, making a stand against an enforced pay cut. "Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay," was the slogan.

It ended 10 days later.