March for Jobs to leave from Brighton Level

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By Ben Parsons, Crime Reporter »


Hundreds of workers are expected to bring city streets to a standstill today in protest at job cuts.

Postal workers and bin collectors are due to rub shoulders with bank staff and university lecturers when a demonstration criss-crosses Brighton between The Level and the seafront.

The March for Jobs is setting out to snake through busy shopping streets from 12pm, as workers vent their anger at big employers who have slashed jobs.

Lloyds TSB, the railway station, the postal sorting office, banks, the University of Brighton and the city council are all in the firing line for demonstrators.

The event is being organised by Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council, an umbrella body for unions whose members represent about 20,000 workers in the city.

Its general secretary, Bill North, said unrest is growing because of the behaviour of banks and politicians while ordinary people face hard times.

He said: “Attacks on jobs and services have been going on for a long time but it is getting clearer and clearer this is only the start.

“The attacks are getting worse and worse and everyone’s going to be affected.”

The march is passing the Royal Mail sorting office in North Road, where Communication Workers Union members are in negotiations over service reform, and the Lloyds TSB office which is due to see hundreds of redundancies.

The march is passing the University of Brighton, where unions are fighting the closure of a nursery, before passing a series of banks in North Street and ending at Brighton Town Hall, in protest at redundancies among council workers.

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: “Police are liaising with the organisers and arrangements have been made to help ensure that peaceful protest is facilitated whilst balancing the needs of the local residential and business community.”