Sunday 29th September saw over 50,000 trade unionists, students, and local residents march through Manchester in one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in the city. The national demo, called by the TUC, was nominally to ‘Save Our NHS’ but reflected a general opposition to continuing austerity and widespread anger at falling living standards for workers whilst profits for the rich are growing.
Sunday 29th September saw over 50,000 trade unionists, students, and local residents march through Manchester in one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in the city. The national demo, called by the TUC, was nominally to ‘Save Our NHS’ but reflected a general opposition to continuing austerity and widespread anger at falling living standards for workers whilst profits for the rich are growing.
This TUC protest was timed to coincide with the beginnings of the Conservative Party annual conference, and the Tories did their best to pretend that tens of thousands of furious workers and youth weren’t on their doorstep by banning reporters from filming the demo from outside the conference venue. As the Tories enjoyed free public transport around the city and discussed plans to force unemployed people to work for their Job Seekers Allowance, the TUC showed what it could be capable of as an effective leading body of the working class.
The enormous turnout for the demo, with coaches bringing people from up and down the country, shows the hardening commitment among working people to fight the government on austerity. Recent figures from the last few years show that while people’s trust in banks, politicians and the media has fallen to record lows, their confidence in trade unions has risen. The recent firefighters’ and teachers’ strikes also reflect a new found confidence in the power of an organised, fighting working class.
However, the organisers of Sunday’s demonstration seemed determined not to nurture this growing militant mood. Not only was the rally held in Whitworth Park – south of the University and some distance outside the city centre – but its political content was minimal, with more emphasis being placed on musical performances than on offering a solution to the problems faced by the millions of workers for whom the TUC is supposed to fight.
A number of the speakers suggested that the mile-and-a-half long demonstration would be an effective “warning” to the Tories that workers would not stand for cuts to the NHS. Working people are already experiencing the cuts to the NHS to the tune of billions of pounds and 21,000 axed jobs – they are fed up of mere warnings and want to start fighting back properly. In any case, a warning will not stop the Tories from making the cuts to the NHS or any other part of the economy. These cuts are the product of capitalist crisis, and so they can only be fought by getting rid of capitalism. Warning the Tories is not enough; we must fight to change society.
Members of the NUT and PCS unions spoke on the platform and linked the struggle to stop the NHS cuts with the struggles of teachers and civil servants over working conditions, pay and pensions. It is clear that only by uniting workers across Britain and the world can we effectively tackle the root cause of falling living standards – capitalism and its inevitable crises.
One PCS speaker pointed out that “it is us, the ordinary people, who make things happen – and it is also us who can stop things from happening”. This reflects the mood of a large number of workers who recognise that they are the ones who really hold the power in society. A march and a music festival on a sunny Sunday in Manchester doesn’t really display this power, but a one-day general strike would serve to flex the muscles of the working class and open their minds to the possibility of what could be achieved with a militant struggle.
Pressure is building up inside the trade unions and the leadership of the TUC fears losing control of the situation. Although this demo may have served to blow off some steam for the rank and file members, the attacks on living standards will not stop. More and more people will be gripped with a sense of the burning urgency that we have to change society and these leaders will be forced to either fight seriously for their members or step aside for someone who will.
Socialist Appeal supporters from London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Calder Valley, Essex, Manchester, Leicester and elsewhere all joined the demonstration and rally to argue for a leadership of the labour movement that is prepared to fight for socialist policies as the only solution to the problems faced by workers and youth.
