140th Durham Miners' Gala welcomes over 200,000 people
Trade unionists from across the world will today join communities from across the Durham
The 140th Durham Miners' Gala is welcoming more than 200,000 people to the city today.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak has today said working-class unity is “more important than ever.”
Trade unionists from across the world are joining communities from across the Durham coalfield to celebrate the achievements of the labour movement.
Paul says working class people can achieve far more when they stick together than when they are divided.
He added: "Durham Miners’ Gala is a huge celebration of working-class unity – which is more important than ever.
“Our country feels more polarised now than at any recent time in memory,
“But history shows that when working people pull together they can achieve real change.
“This year alone we have won the Employment Rights Act. An historic piece of legislation that will mean more job security. Sick pay for all, paid from the first day you fall ill. Stronger protections against unfair dismissal. A new right to bereavement leave and improvements to parental leave.
“None of this was handed down from on high. It was achieved through years of hard work, campaigning and lobbying by working people and their unions all around the country.
"That’s spirit we need to harness to meet the challenges facing this country today.
“There are those determined to talk down Britain – and this great region and to try and divide us.
“But we must not get sucked into their zero-sum game. We must continue to fight for a better future together. Unity works!”
Unison general secretary Andrea Egan will tell tens of thousands of people today that workers need to be “organising hard, getting ready to fight and preparing to strike”.
She will say: “Millions upon millions of people in this country are struggling. Families with children are going hungry and public services are still in tatters.
“Staff are overworked, underpaid and disrespected while wealth piles up at the top.
“Even with all that is facing us, politicians are more interested in spending money on weapons and foreign wars than investing in people.”
She will add that there must be “a message to those in power, bosses and politicians alike, that it’s the working class who keep the country going”.
“We won’t accept pay cuts and poverty, we won’t accept a broken country and we won’t accept a society stacked against us any more.”
Several other union leaders will address the event.