Protests over government spending cuts took place earlier in the week
Union activists are set to take part in a series of protests across the UK later as part of a campaign against the government’s spending cuts.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber is expected to tell a London rally that unions are uniting service users and community groups against the cuts.
It comes after the TUC said a national demonstration will be held on 26 March next year in London’s Hyde Park.
Chancellor George Osborne announced deep public spending cuts on Wednesday.
About 490,000 public sector jobs are likely to be lost as part of the cuts – the deepest and most wide-ranging by a government in decades.
The government says the cuts are necessary to reduce the UK’s £155bn deficit and strengthen the UK’s economy in the long term. It aims to save £83bn in four years.
During his announcement, Mr Osborne said: “To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin,” adding that “a stronger Britain starts here”.
Later, Mr Barber is expected to tell protesters the union movement and the UK “face the sternest test in a generation”.
“Not only is the economy on its knees, not only is the law tilted against us, but we have a government in power that is making spending cuts of a speed, scale and savagery never before seen,” he will say.
In London, demonstrators are set to gather outside the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) head office to hear speeches from Bob Crow, the union’s general secretary, and Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, which is holding a strike in London.
They will then march to the TUC rally.
‘Wave of protest’
Mr Crow said protesters were “planning the fightback that will harness the anger that will be boiling up” following the measures implemented by what he called a “brutal and vitriolic government”.
He predicted the UK-wide rallies would “kickstart a tidal wave of protest”.
Thousands of people are expected to march through Edinburgh. At least 100 buses will carry demonstrators from all across Scotland to the march through Princes Street before a rally at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens.
Union group the STUC has arranged the rally.
The decision to hold a national demonstration in March 2011 came after moves within the TUC to organise this protest before the end of the year were overruled by other, less hardline, union leaders.
Earlier this week health workers, council staff, firefighters, teachers and other public sector employees held protests ahead of the cuts announcement.
Thousands in Westminster cheered speeches by union leaders before lining up to lobby MPs about cutbacks.
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