7,000 march through Birmingham in job cuts protest
7,000 people marched through Birmingham city centre in an emotional protest against job cuts yesterday and told the Government: ‘‘Help us Now.’’
Worried workers and the unemployed from across the country took part in the mass demonstration and demanded immediate action to boost struggling industries.
Former trade minister Lord Digby Jones was among the huge crowd at the rally, organised by trade union Unite to put pressure on Gordon Brown to save recession-hit manufacturers.
The Birmingham-born former CBI boss put his political differences with Unite joint leader Tony Woodley aside to march for the first time.
He said: “I’m losing my marching virginity. Tony Woodley and I don’t agree on many things but on this issue he is absolutely right.
“The skilled jobs in my home town of Birmingham and manufacturing is more important than Government, moats or flatscreen TVs.
‘‘We need to stop talking about MPs’ expenses and focus on this real issue and we want the Government to sit up and take notice.
‘‘We want them to understand that if we don’t keep skills in manufacturing in Birmingham when the economy turns round, which it will, international manufacturing investors will go to Mumbai, Shanghai and Germany.”
Mr Woodley also said the Government should be doing more to save jobs, describing it as ‘a no-brainer’.
“There is no sector of our economy in the country that is not losing jobs,’’ he said.
‘‘The Government has used £900 billion of our money to bail out the banks but the money is not rolling out of the banks into small and medium businesses and jobs.
“It’s no good just bailing out the banks and the spivs and the speculators who caused this global crisis. It’s about the workers.
‘‘We have lost 67,000 jobs in the last three months and that will more than double by the end of the year if the Government doesn’t do more.
“Governments in Spain and Belgium are subsidising short-time working so when the market place picks up the skills are there.”
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