And you can see the point, who wouldn't want our children to be taught and our sick to be looked after by people who feel valued and who can Plan to spend a lifetime of work within their vocation?

Yet for many, especially the entrepreneurial sector, the strikers were angrily dismissed. This tweet from @LucyHG (https://twitter.com/#!/lucyhg) sums it up nicely: "it seems some people seem to have chosen jobs / careers based on the pension offered!? seriously... that gets them out of bed everyday?"The strikes were to protect pension security that doesn't exist for entrepreneurs either.

But aside from the reaction of the non-strikers, and intentionally ignoring the political element to all of this, these strikes were caused by bad PR.

For many years public sector workers were, on average, lower paid than in the private sector. But this shortfall was made up with better benefits, including pension contributions. Yet as the economy has struggled over the last few years this disparity in pay is no longer in place. Many private sector workers have taken pay cuts, reduced their hours or incurred other cost saving measures. So public sector workers aren't paid any less, but their benefits are still, generally speaking, much better.

At the same time the public finances have suffered. The current coalition government is making major cuts, but Labour would have had to do much the same. And one of the areas that the biggest savings can be made is with the government employees: the public sector. To almost any outside observer these cuts were almost inevitable given the current situation.

Yet, and here's the vital bit, none of this has been effectively communicated. Neither the reduced pay gap, nor the almost inevitable cuts to pensions and other benefits.

Nearly all do the vox pops that have been broadcast though the media during the strikes have come from onside or the other saying the "party" line:

- How dare they strike, we've all had to take a pay cut, so they should be grateful they've got a job; or

- We're defending our rights and entitlements, these pensions are our right

Effective communication of the situation, over years, should and would have helped to create a greater understanding on both sides. But mainly it would have fore-warned the public sector that this was coming - and that in many people's eyes they're still very lucky.

From my point of view, I think that, unfortunately, the pension cuts need to happen and that ultimately the public sector will need to "suck it up" like the rest of us have had to. However, the almost unilateral way that it has happened doesn't seem right and for many it represents a betrayal after a lifetime of public work.