Our day of protests

Published: 18 June, 2010

• THE Labour leader of Islington Council, Councillor Catherine West, told a packed public meeting last Thursday that the new administration would be doing all it could to protect residents – and especially the most disadvantaged – from damaging government public spending cuts.  

Cllr West said the council was in the process of setting up a Fairness Commission, which she wanted the public and organisations in the borough to contribute to so that together we could make Islington a fairer place to live and work in. 

The meeting, called by Islington Trades Union Council (ITUC), agreed to set up an Islington Against the Cuts Coalition to resist cuts to public services and jobs. The new coalition is going to campaign for alternatives to the government’s cuts agenda, which if implemented will have a devastating effect on public services and jobs that working people rely upon.

This ITUC initiative – supported by the Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition and the Right to Work campaign – will link up with community groups to form a broad coalition against the cuts. 

We are helping to organise a day of protests against the cuts on Tuesday, Budget Day, including demonstrations outside Whittington Hospital in Magdala Avenue at noon and also at 6.30pm outside the town hall in Upper Street.

We will be arguing for alternatives to damaging cuts such as: maintenance of public spending, creation of decent jobs, taxing the rich more, cracking down on tax avoidance, ending costly wars and nuclear weapons, and halting costly privatisation and marketisation by returning public and utility services to 

public ownership with decent direct labour jobs.

A public meeting to plan the formal launch of the coalition will be held at 7.30pm on Thursday, July 1, at the Italian Trade Union Centre, 124 Canonbury Road. 

We urge as many people and community groups as possible to attend.  

GARY HEATHER
President
Mick Gilgunn
Secretary
Islington Trades Union Council Romilly Road, N4