Cardiff city centre shoppers applauded hundreds of Remploy workers on Friday as they marched against Con-Dem coalition plans to axe many of their factories.
Members of the public accepted leaflets and postcards addressed to David Cameron from the protesters who chanted: "Jobs not Benefits" and branded disabled people's minister "Maria Miller Remploy Killer."
Many wore T-shirts taking issue with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith's recent slanderous comments that Remploy workers spend most of their time drinking coffee.
Their shirts read: "We R workers not coffee-drinking shirkers."
At the end of the march GMB union national secretary Phil Davies told a rally in Cardiff's City Hall that the company had been in a mess for 10 years through no fault of the workers.
Mr Davies blamed "lazy incompetent management that has done nothing to ensure that Remploy survives," urging members to back the current industrial action ballot.
"If you don't vote Yes, they'll sell this company from under you. It's time to stand up and fight," he declared to roars of support.
Welsh Assembly Member Mick Antoniw brought solidarity greetings from Education and Skills Minister Leighton Andrews and the Welsh government's "unequivocal support."
He said First Minister Carwyn Jones had asked the Prime Minister to devolve Remploy and its funding to the Welsh government, which would "provide procurement and ensure that Remploy is viable."
GMB South West regional secretary John Phillips said that just one word fitted government treatment of Remploy - "betrayal."
Together with management, it is "running the company into the ground in order to bring the shutters down," he added.
Unite Wales regional secretary Andy Richards said that it had been "heartening to see the level of public support" in the city centre, which he contrasted with the Con-Dem government's "disgraceful, disrespectful and totally wrong" policy.
GMB South West regional president Sheila Bearcroft noted that the government had done "a few U-turns this week. We just need one big one over Remploy."
Wales TUC president Amarjite Singh, in his first public engagement since taking up his post, accused the Westminster government of cruelty, saying the Remploy workers had "marched for a future that no-one has the right to steal."
Labour MP Ann Clwyd promised that, if Remploy workers decided to occupy their factories, "I will join you as I did the miners of Tower colliery."
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