56-year old Audrey works at a benefits processing centre and is joining a one-day strike action, concerned about changes to pensions, changes to retirement age, and a recent decision to close the whole office and redeploy staff to other centres in the region. She is unhappy at the prospect of extending her working life, having to postpone joining her husband in retirement and helping with caring responsibilities for two family members. She says, “We are being asked to travel further to work, to work for longer, for less money and for less pension at the end. It doesn’t make sense. It makes me feel sick and worried and confused, cheated, especially this near retirement age. From what should have been a reasonable retirement prospect for us, we could end up being hard up. We’ve worked all our lives in the public sector. It’s really scary.”