Worcester Against the Cuts 1st Meeting – Press Release

Worcester Against the Cuts has organised a public meeting for the evening of Monday 1 Nov, in St Andrew’s Church, Pump Street, Worcester City Centre, WR1 2QT.

This is in protest at the deepest cuts to public spending since the 1920s announced by George Osborne in his Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20. Trade Unionists and community campaigners will meet to hear speakers describe how a concerted campaign can force councils and NHS bosses to reject the cuts and the government to retreat.

Pete McNally, a Malvern train driver, local chair of the National Shop Stewards’ Network and co-founder of Worcester Against the Cuts said, “We are determined to win this battle. The Tories were defeated over the Poll Tax and they can be defeated again. This meeting is an important step in the development of a fight back against the austerity measures. All those opposed to all the Con-Dem government cuts are welcome. All those implementing those cuts should be warned: you will not get an easy ride.”

Neil Laurenson, another co-founder of Worcester Against the Cuts declared, “There is an alternative to making cuts. The Independent yesterday reported that big business corporations avoid paying tax of £12 billion a year and that the rich in this country avoid or evade paying £120 billion in tax. That’s more than all the cuts from the Spending Review and the June emergency budget all rolled into one. Recovering tax from these sources should be a priority. It should not be us who have to pay with job losses and the devastation of our public services. There are 14 millionaires in the Tory/Lib Dem cabinet and it is not hard to see where their interests lie.”

Mark Davies, UNITE the union member and fellow activist in Worcester Against the Cuts added, “Cuts were announced under the previous Labour administration and they have now been compounded by the Tories and the Lib Dems. We will be losing 120 beds at Worcester Royal, 200 NHS Worcestershire jobs and in our view probably many more, 23 lecturers at Worcester Tech as well as at least 1000 student places. The worst, though, is the 1000 job losses at the County Council. The private sector is supposed to pick up the redundancies, but this will not happen in Worcestershire – just look at Qinetiq, 200 redundancies, with the real prospect of more to come. Schools won’t be refurbished or rebuilt, hospitals will be stretched to the limit, and to cap it all, we will pay more for our pensions, retire later and get less in retirement.”

Ian Leahair from the Fire Brigades’ Union National Executive Committee representing London will address the meeting on how best to fight back against the cuts on the day London fire fighters stage an all out strike against the imposition of radically different shift patterns. RMT (rail union) regional organiser Dave Marshall from St Johns will also explain how the Tory Lib Dem cuts will hit the poorest hardest. Kim Foster from Youth Fight For Jobs a TUC backed group committed to fighting against youth unemployment will tell how the raising of the pension age sends a message to young people that you will never get a good job. Sean McCauley from the NUT in Worcestershire will lay out how the cuts will affect us locally in Worcestershire as well as a way forward for the campaign.

All speakers will appear in a personal capacity.

For more information contact:

Sean McCauley                0781 483 6909

Pete McNally                0776 176 9412

Neil Laurenson                  07805 871 163