Reflections on 24 April in Manchester

Not a bad day for those fighting Brown's pay freeze. We are, you could say, extremely rusty or rather, extremely unfit. Over twenty years since the last teachers strike but for the first time in Manchester and elsewhere we have succeeded in taking the movement against the public sector pay limits on to the streets. A real step forward, with seven or eight hundred demonstrating. Most of those who marched did so for the first time, including a lot of young teachers and lecturers.
Earlier in the day, there were eighteen pickets in the rain at the Sheena Simon, Whitworth Street, site of City College, Manchester. Look at them. No one can say that their spirits have been dampened by the rain. They are, in fact, a group who two years ago successfully balloted over the management's attempt to introduce a worse contract for new starters. Such was the strength of our side that the other side capitulated a couple of days before the strike action was to start.




On the march itself, chants were taken up and the noisiest section, the twenty or so students, were warmly received. The banner at the front bluntly put the argument:

The unity was complete. Strikers and supporters, members of a more than half a dozen different unions (NUT, PCS, UCU, UNITE, UNISON, CWU, NUJ, FBU) and the North West TUC and students and pensioners protested together and held two rallies, one indoors , the other outside without a single discordant note. Quite some achievement. A good start and an encouragement when we recognise that we have a long way to go.