Northern Ireland workers take cuts battle to streets

The Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions' (NIC-Ictu) annual May Day parade around the city will start with speeches at Writers Square on Donegall Street at noon.

Belfast Trades Council president Paddy Mackel, NIC-Ictu chair Pamela Dooley and Ictu president Eugene McGlone will put fire in marchers' bellies before they set off from Donegall St at 12.30.

Participants will pass Royal Avenue and Belfast City Hall before returning to Writers Square via the High Street.

The Belfast May Day parade is still the largest such workers' event in Ireland, regularly attracting 5-10,000 marchers from every trade union, as well as myriad of campaigning and community organisations.

It is a multi-cultural event, uniting citizens around a progressive political message.

This year's message is resistance to the austerity programme of the Westminster government, titled: "A Better and Fairer Way."

Ms Dooley sent her support today to the community workers, civil servants, lone parents and migrant workers who picketed Belfast's main jobcentre on Tuesday to oppose the regressive Welfare Reform Bill and the attacks on social services and jobs.

"The NI Committee of the Ictu understands and supports the aims of the community activists who engaged in a peaceful protest against planned changes to the welfare system which will further impoverish working-class families and will disproportionately affect women."

Ms Dooley said the trade union movement was "resolutely opposed" to plans to freeze child benefit for three years and cut working tax credits. 

"These and other measures amount to mean-spirited cuts for the most vulnerable in our society and an attack on low-paid workers, especially women.

"The annual May Day parade will again reiterate the clear opposition of the unions to cuts and one-sided austerity, and we welcome all workers and their families from all communities to support our calls for a Better and Fairer Way."