Brighton Branch marches with the TUC against austerity

On Saturday 20 October, a Brighton and Mid-Sussex Branch contingent travelled up to London on the Trades Council chartered train to take part in the TUC's 'A future that works' anti-austerity march. Here is a photo of the NUJ group - including our General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet - which was near the back of the march, along with the 'entertainment unions'. It was a great show of solidarity and a big thank you to the Trades Council for organising the trip.

From the Newcastle DM

Brighton Branch secretary Phil Mellows puts motion 122 at the NUJ Delegate Meeting, Newcastle

Brighton Branch sent Phil Mellows and Fred Pipes to the NUJ Delegate Meeting, Newcastle, 5-7 October 2012. Our one motion, 122, in the Ethics section, was passed unanimously, after being moved by Phil. The other big news from the conference was that austerity measures to increase subscriptions by 5% and only hold the DM every two years were passed, but only after a close card vote, and both photographers and 60+ will get their own Councils. Full report to follow.

Fred (Alan) was interviewed by one of the student delegates, Leela Prasad - you can read his verbatim ramblings here: http://nujadm.org.uk/2012/interview-with-alan-pipes/ . You can find other interviews on that website too, along with news and analysis as reported by the journalism students.

View from our table. General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet is speaking. The gap behind president Donnacha DeLong is where a giant NUJ logo was - it fell off on the first day of the conference!

Join the TUC Demo October 20th

No to Austerity! March Together! Organise to Strike Together! 

The NUJ Branch will be reserving a block of seats on the train to the demo as described in the following Trades Council announcement:

The TUC have called a demonstration for ‘A Future That Works’ in central London on 20th October. This has the potential to see many hundreds of thousands on the streets - a huge show of anger against the government. The Brighton Trade Union Council with the support of most of our city’s union branches has booked a train so we can all travel up and back together. 

Book a seat today and join us! 

We have seen 350,000 public sector jobs lost, 4 years of pay freeze, NHS privatisation, 1 million youth unemployed, university fees tripled, benefits slashed, EMA cut... and only 15% of the cuts have been made so far. All this as the deficit and the coffers of the super-rich keep expanding! Our movement shook the government on 30th November when 2 million workers were on strike against the pensions robbery. In Brighton the strike was solid and 10,000 demonstrated.

Brighton Trades Council is against ALL cuts, ALL austerity, and believes that if strike action had continued and been escalated it could have forced the government to retreat. This demonstration needs to be as big as possible, not just to show the government we won’t put up with cuts, but also to be a chance to organise our workplaces, colleges, communities and towns to reject austerity.

Join the joint union train! Hundreds of subsidised seats available! If you are a union member your branch or region is probably already involved so contact them for a seat. If you do not belong to a union you can book seats direct with the Trades Council.

Email Phil at BrightonTradesCouncil@gmail.com

Train from Brighton approx 10am, return from Victoria approx 5pm.
Book a seat for full details.