Star date: 6th September 2014

BIG ANTI AUSTERITY MARCH IN MANCHESTER DEMANDS CHANGE

"The union movement will not forget that it was New Labour that built the bridges that the Tories now walk over" Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary

After over one thousand people had marched through Manchester demanding an end to austerity, UNISON General secretary Dave Prentis threatened the Labour Party leadership with the "price" of its members' support... "if they want our people to vote, it won't be just because they don't like the Tories, they have got to have a vision of a better, fairer society".

Announcing a ballot of 350,000 UNISON health workers to take industrial action in October, Prentis added: "That is the start of our campaign which will run and run and run until this austerity agenda is kicked out into the gutter where it belongs..."

Full details here...

"This Government is vicious and it is evil and it is time it went" Annette Wright, Manchester Trades Council
 

Over one thousand people marched from Castlefield through Manchester city centre today demanding an end to austerity. Salford trade unions represented included PCS, Unite, GMB and Salford City UNISON plus community campaigns against Blacklisting and the Bedroom Tax. Other trade unionists and community campaigners came from all over the North West.

Addressing a rally at Castlefield Arena after the march, UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis laid out in no uncertain terms the price of support for the Labour Party from trade unions at the General Election next year.

Attacking Blair, Brown et al, and receiving loud applause, Prentis said "It's not just the Tories and Lib Dems - we know what they are like, using the problems we have got for their own ends to reduce the state and get rid of our National Health Service...We know that....But we in the union movement will not forget also that it was New Labour that built the bridges that the Tories now walk over, and we will not allow that to happen again."

Announcing a ballot of 350,000 UNISON health workers to take industrial action in October, in conjunction with millions of other public sector workers, Prentis also took a swipe at Ed Miliband and other Labour front benchers who went public against union strikes on July 10th when over one million public sector workers took industrial action for a pay rise.

"It's our Labour Party, nobody else's" he said "And when we take action in October we expect our Labour Party and its leadership to support us. They are in opposition, not to oppose us, but to oppose the Tories..."

Prentis set out the "price" of support at the next Election... "We want them to commit to end the abuses of all of the things that have been happening – zero hours contracts have got to end, the Bedroom Tax has got to end, we have got to stop the privatisation of our NHS - we expect Labour to demand that the Health Act is abolished and replaced by one which supports our NHS. We expect Labour to abolish the Lobbying Act...

"Yes we do have a price" he added "If they want our people to vote, it won't be just because they don't like the Tories, they have got to have a vision of a better, fairer society. We will be the voice of working people in this country... We expect fairness and we expect things to be restored."

Urging people to make the protest against austerity in London on October 18th bigger than the Anti-Poll Tax demonstration which brought down Thatcher, Prentis promised that was just the "start of our campaign which will run and run and run until this austerity agenda is kicked out into the gutter where it belongs...We will not tolerate any government that stands by the Tory spending limits..."

The Labour Party has already stated that it will keep those "Tory spending limits" for two years if it regains power...

Avis Gilmore, North West Regional Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, echoed UNISON's sentiments to "send a message to every political party, so that a future government listens to us...that we are not prepared to put up with their austerity."

Attacking the Tories she said "They don't live in the real world and don't care about us in the real world...They don't care about our children, our grandchildren...

"Teachers see the damage every day that this Government's policies are doing to our children" she explained "They see children whose parents can't cope – their Sure Start and early years support has been decimated...They see children who are hungry because their parents can't afford to feed them. We've got members who are taking food into school every day to give to children who haven't had breakfast, who can't afford lunch and have no prospect of an evening meal.

"Our teachers see child carers looking after parents and facing massive problems... we see children whose parents have no jobs and no prospect of jobs" she added "We know that here in the North West we are suffering more than other parts of the country. The Government says it's made no cuts in education but there is only the same amount of funding as four years ago, that doesn't buy an education. Not only that but it's moved money from schools and teachers and from local authorities to their ridiculous academy and free school privatisation programme."

Gilmore explained that the NUT campaign against austerity is "a campaign for a better world".

Other speakers at the rally included Annette Wright, President of Manchester Trades Council, who put today's rally and march into a local historical context...

"The TUC was founded here in 1868 by Manchester and Salford Trades Councils" she said "And when you think back to those times it's very difficult to imagine what life would have been like then – but it would have been very difficult five years ago to imagine what life was going to be like here in Britain in 2014. We are seeing things that many of us thought we would never see in our lives...

"There are people sleeping on the streets in significant numbers, there are people relying on food banks" she explained "And there are people being driven to the edge of suicide, and who are being driven over that edge, and who are starving to death because they've been unable to find their way through a benefits system which was designed as a social security safety net but which, in the hands of this Government, has turned into some sick social experiment to see how people fare with no money whatsoever in a society where the only way to meet your most basic human needs is to pay for them. This Government is vicious and it is evil and it is time it went."

Calling for industrial action to begin the fight against austerity she added... "There is a lie going around this country at the moment - that it is impossible to have an alternative to austerity. If you take one thing away from this event today, I hope it will be that you tell yourself that you will never, ever, allow this lot at the top to make you believe that change is impossible.

"Change is entirely possible if enough people like us want it enough, and do enough to make it possible" she said "It is possible for us to have a better society where the poor don't have to suffer to make the rich richer..."

Photos by Steven Speed
For more photos see Salford Star Picture stories – click here or https://salfordstar.jux.com