The huge numbers marching from the Parnell monument in Dublin yesterday brought back memories of the tax demonstration in January 1980, described then as the biggest march in post-war Europe. Over 700,000 workers were looking for tax reform at a time when almost 90% of the state's entire tax take was being paid by one sector of society.

It was acknowledged as a peaceful revolution of sorts, a dramatic signal to the government that enough was enough and that, unless there was equity in the way workers were taxed, there would be trouble.

That march signalled the start of taxation reform in this country. It's a project that has certainly reduced direct taxation for everyone, but it also quickly became mired in a labyrinth of tax shelters and avoidance schemes for the rich that have multiplied ever since and are now regarded as having played a significant part in the economic bubble that has caused our downfall.

But because of their numbers and the social solidarity displayed by those marchers almost 30 years ago, the echoes of the past resonated strongly yesterday.

Except, of course, for one important fact: Back in January 1980, the workforce (if not the trade union leadership) was united.

Yesterday's march was a stark contrast because, beneath the rhetoric and behind the placards that were supposed to avoid civil war between the public and private sectors, the entire event underlined the divisions in the trade union movement and the country as a whole.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions may have organised it as a day of protest against public sector cuts and as a means of highlighting its plan for national recovery but most marchers were public servants, and it was all about anger at the pension levy. True, some private sector workers turned out, but they were in the minority. Most were civil servants – teachers, nurses and gardaí – whose unions have not just encouraged them to march but have also organised ballots to authorise industrial action against the levy.

The dangers for the union movement are immense because the backlash against public sector workers will be huge if schools close or health services are disrupted or unemployment benefits are delayed or training courses affected by worker action.

Losing income is unwelcome. But the trouble with pain, even when shared, is that you feel it, whatever your "personal circumstances". Pain is also relative. And private sector workers are enduring carnage on the unemployment front, have taken substantial pay cuts, are making pension contributions that are practically worthless, or have no pension at all despite having made decades of contributions.

Neither anger nor "personal circumstances" will cut €2bn from current spending this year. That is why public sector workers must get real. For the vast majority, their pensions are so valuable that not even the revised levy would pay for it in the real world of pension actuary.

There was a huge outcry at the fact Financial Regulator Patrick Neary got such a large pay-off and pension despite his failings. In fact, his pension – apart from compensation for eight months' pay he would have earned before retiring at 60 – was no more nor less than every public sector worker is entitled to after 40 years – a lump sum of a year-and-a-half's salary and a full 50% of final salary, index-linked to any future pay rises applicable to that grade.

Money can't pay that sort of pension – not a 3% levy, not a 5% levy, not a 9% levy, not a 20% levy – but it's the sort of pension every public sector worker enjoys.

It is unfair that the global economy has gone belly-up because the greed of bankers destabilised the financial system. It is unfair that so many bankers here continue in their jobs despite obvious incompetence. It is unfair that tax revenues were so skewed in favour of property transactions that, now that the housing market has collapsed, no money is coming into the national coffers. But the country is crippled economically. We do not have to cripple it further by taking industrial action.

The levy is being applied because public sector unions point blank refused to take a pay cut (which is their right) and because public sector workers currently don't make a pension contribution that bears any relation to the money they get when they retire.

The next step is higher tax (which should be directed at higher earners), university fees, an end to pre-school child benefit and property tax. They are all on the cards in the next budget. They will apply to everyone, and we will all feel a lot more pain.