Workers Revolutionary Party - GREAT RESPONSE TO YS MARCH IN BIRMINGHAM

The News Line: News Saturday, 13 November 2010 GREAT RESPONSE TO YS MARCH IN BIRMINGHAM

Young Socialists marchers join with students against the planned £9,000 fees hike, demanding an end to all fees

The Young Socialists March for Jobs for Youth and Free State Education leaves the Bullring in central Birmingham at 9am this morning.

It is setting off on the Birmingham to Coventry leg of their march from Manchester to London.

The YS marchers are spending Sunday campaigning in Coventry before marching on to Northampton on Monday.

The march has had fantastic support all the way down from Manchester and is building up for a powerful rally at Queen Mary’s College in Mile End, east London on Sunday 21 November.

The march arrived in Birmingham on Thursday afternoon and scores of local workers and youth joined the WRP and YS and bought their tickets for the rally as the marchers campaigned on Thursday afternoon and all day yesterday.

The marchers constantly turned to the trade union movement all the way down the road for support.

On Thursday night, the Birmingham and West Midlands Region of the GMB union provided the marchers with a fantastic evening meal in a Birmingham pub.

GMB Regional Secretary Joe Morgan said: ‘You contacted our regional office and asked for our support, and of course we immediately said “yes”.

‘It’s a wonderful thing the Young Socialists are doing.

‘This government needs people demonstrating all over the country.

‘The government says they are going to make people work for their benefit, but there are no jobs.

‘What I say is, if the streets need cleaning, then these are proper jobs that require proper pay.

‘In Birmingham the council has issued notices to 26,000 employees, of which eight thousand are GMB members, saying either accept reduced terms and conditions or you’re sacked.

‘They issued the notices in September and are demanding a response by December.

‘They are demanding total flexible working. Nobody will have a job title anymore.