PICTURES: Dozens attend Inverness rally highlighting cost-of-living crisis and threats to workers' rights
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DOZENS of Highlanders have added their voices to calls for the protection of workers' rights – amid a wave of recent strike action in the UK and controversial Westminster moves to curtail it.
Around 70 people attended a May Day rally in Inverness's Falcon Square on Saturday to mark International Workers' Day, which falls every May 1.
A number of residents, trade union representatives and local politicians attended the rally to highlight the cost-of-living crisis and the right to strike.
Speakers included Conor Cheyne from RMT Scotland, Dan Thompson form EIS Scotland, Gary Clarke from CWU and Scottish Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition, and Alan Murdoch from GMB Scotland, Sean Robertson (chairman of Inverness TUC and GMB Scotland), Leah Ganley (secretary of Inverness TUC and president of GMB Inverness and Highland Branch), as well as Drew Hendry MP and Scottish Greens Inverness West Councillor Ryan Mackintosh .
Leah Ganley said: "The government is attacking workers and communities. Workers' right to strike is under threat, public services are being cut and wages aren't keeping up with the skyrocketing cost of living, among a myriad of other crises... If we want to fight back we need to strike together!"
Mr Hendry added: "Workers have a right to be respected, to be rewarded fairly and to work in safe conditions. We must all get behind this cause – to ensure more rights aren’t stripped away for those who need them.
"Thank you to the Inverness and District Trades Union Council for inviting me to your rally today - rest assured I will continue to use my voice at Westminster to fight against the roll back of workers rights. "
Sean Robertson said: "The past year has seen both an unprecedented level of attacks on workers and communities but also an unparalleled fightback from workers.
"In the face of the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling inflation – caused by profiteering by big business, not pay demands from low paid workers – workers across all sectors have decided to say enough is enough and to fight back."
He added: "Apart from blaming workers, what is the Tories’ answer to the multiple crises we are seeing?
"People protested against the government. So, the government tried to ban protest.
"The public look set to vote them out, so they made voting harder with voter IDs.
"People withdrew their labour as a last resort against the onslaught on their living standards, so they tried to effectively ban strikes!
"The government have no answers to the underlying problems affecting the economy, workers, and communities, other than to become more and more authoritarian.
"These are the symptoms of a government out of ideas, unable and unwilling to take the measures we need to fix the economy, stop cuts to public services and end the cost-of-living crisis."
