VOTE2019 Labour’s time to govern ‘What we’ve been


We speak to Unite members on why it’s Labour’s time to govern


Energised by a party revitalised by its unflinching commitment to a fair and just society, Unite members have turned out in droves to campaign for Labour in December’s snap election.


uniteWORKS spoke to a number of members attending Labour rallies in the North West, all who see this election as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the direction of a country pummelled by Tory austerity and attacks to working people’s rights.


Sean Halsall, a Unite member, bus driver and local councillor for Sefton in Liverpool, said he was inspired by the Labour party’s pledge to reverse the Tories’ swingeing cuts to local services.


“I got elected to Sefton council this May and through doing that I’ve seen how brutal the cuts have been, probably more so in the North West than down south. Sefton have so far had £250m cuts to our budget since austerity began and we’re being asked to cut another £45m over the next three years,” he explained. “It’s completely unsustainable.”


As a bus driver for the last 14 years, Sean said he’s seen how privatisation has damaged the prospects for those working in his sector.


“Privatisation has clearly failed,” he said. “Bus deregulation has just led to a race to the bottom in terms and conditions in many bus companies across the country. I think we need public services in public hands that are providing the services they’re supposed to provide – this is exactly what Labour has pledged.”


He urged Unite members to turn out for Labour because, he says, “it’s the only party that have working people’s interest at heart. “And for the first time in a generation, we have a real socialist in charge of the party who’s surrounded himself with other socialists in the cabinet – this is our chance for real change.”


Unite member Amanda Moss agrees. Currently unemployed because of long- term illness, she now spends time helping collect food for local food banks and knows from this experience the desperation families have been driven to under austerity.


“The fact that the Trussell Trust gave out 41,000 food parcels four years ago and now we’re up to over a million parcels – it’s awful,” she told uniteWORKS ahead of a Labour rally in Darwen in Lancashire. “We’ve got working parents having to go to food banks; people having to ask for food at half-term because they can’t feed their kids. It breaks my heart watching.”


She said she hoped people in Darwen, part of a marginal constituency, would look beyond the headlines and understand the profound change Labour could bring to the local area.


“I want to see people in this town inspired and see what Jeremy really stands for – when people see him in person they see him outside of that fake press image,” Amanda noted, as she urged Unite members to vote Labour.


“Vote for the children, for parents, for the next generation,” she pleaded. “Labour must come into power to reverse these last


Find out more VOTE 2019 8 uniteWORKS Winter 2019


10 years of cuts. And yes they will have to spend some money – but it won’t be anywhere near the trillions wasted by the Tory party that have destroyed our public services and our communities.”


Unite rep and biomedical scientist Mag Worden has been working in the NHS for more than three decades and has seen for herself how the health service has suffered under the hands of successive Tory governments.


“There’s a feeling that everything in the service is being deliberately de-funded,” she said. “Once everything is de-funded and the service isn’t adequate, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well this isn’t working. That’s the pathway to privatisation; it’s all deliberate.”


Mag said for her, voting Labour is about securing a health service that adequately meets the needs of patients and staff.


“It’s about rewarding dedicated, loyal health workers who like me have seen years and years of pay freezes and cuts,” she added. “My particular team in pathology is really integral to the health service – 70 per cent of medical diagnoses are made from the results of pathology lab tests. It needs to be recognised and rewarded.


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