After the strikers rally in the Square on 30th June 2011 a UK Uncut demonstration took place outside Vodafone, a notorious tax dodging company owned by billionaire Philip Green who also owns Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Miss Selfridge and BHS.
Chants at Vodafone demo included: "teachers, nurses face the axe, 'cos Vodafone won't pay their tax." "Money for jobs and education, not for greedy corporations!" "Striking workers, show the way, make the greedy bankers pay." "Fight for jobs and education, not for greedy corporations."
As well as banners with slogans against Vodafone, there were banners in support of disabled people's services which are under attack while the government let corporations away with billions of pounds in tax evasion. Among the slogans on banners were: "Save the Accord", the disabled centre in Dalmarnock that the council plans to flatten to build an extra car park for the Commonwealth Games. Another banner read: "Glasgow 2014 Games. The Legacy. Accord Centre RIP (rest in peace.) Shame on you Glasgow City Council" And the Black Triangle organisation's banner: "Disabled people, fighting for our future, custodians of our past." Other banners about cuts and taxdodging: "Vodafone don't pay as they go." "Who needs a relationship when you're getting screwed by David Cameron?" "Remember when teachers, nurses, doctors and firefighters crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither."
There is an open mic at the demo and several demonstrators say a few words. They all condemn the £6,000,000,000 in unpaid tax that the government has allowed Vodafone to get away with. One activist says the government should be going after the big tax evaders like Vodafone and get our 6 billion back instead of cutting pensions for public sector workers. He mentions the 30,000 workers on strike in Scotland that day against cuts in public services and pensions. Another protestor beside the Vodafone entrance talks of how corporations are being protected while ordinary people are losing jobs, benefits and pensions. He criticises the IMF and international organisations as being corrupt institutions. He says the IMF is an example of plutocracy with the way they use their loans to force governments to do what they want. He refers to the problems in Greece and compares it with here. Another person says: "Shame on Vodafone who have refused to pay £6,000,000,000 in taxes, whilst we face cuts, we face the brunt of this recession." Another demonstrator speaks of exploited workers throughout the world and mentions a strike by Bangladeshi workers and mass protests. He says we need to link their struggle with that of the ordinary people here, the attacks on workers or people on benefit, and says that, like the people in Spain or Greece, we should not accept institutions like banks or the millionaires and billionaires owning the country or the wealth that the workers create.
Another activist refers to Vodafone as one of the worst tax-dodging corporations in existence and says that the demonstration is to draw attention to the fraudulent economic activity of the big corporation and also to highlight the connection between this and the attacks on living standards that are already underway in every part of the globe. He praises the protest actions of the Greek people that are currently taking place. He condemns the local council over the closure of the Accord Centre for disabled people. He criticises the council and all the gangsters across Glasgow who are in cahoots over the commonwealth games to displace disabled people. "We're not prepared to pay with our lives, health and education in order to resolve the contradictions of a system that is nothing to do with us. We are standing here to say we oppose all the cuts and we refuse to pay for a crisis that is absolutely nothing to do with working class people. It's everything to do with the crisis of capitalism. We oppose the police presence and we are exercising our right to speak. Every day in the media we hear of the attacks on living standards, on the poor, the vulnerable, the disabled, the unemployed but yet we never hear what caused the crisis in the first place. Vodafone and the entire capitalist system is rotten to the core, and in order to resolve this crisis they have to cause more wars. And they're not just satisfied with destroying Iraq and Afghanistan and taking them back to the dark ages; now we are also in the 104th day of a brutal occupation of the Libyan people, and if we tolerate their obliteration at the hands of our government it will be our rights next that are obliterated. Anti-cuts activists need to oppose the illegal acts by our government who are desperate to make their attacks upon the poor of this country."
Manifestation contre les coupes budgetaires dans les services publiques.
Manifestazione contro i tagli.
Protestaktion
N30: More strike action & demos on 30/11/11
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UK Uncut NHS protest - in Wood Green London.movby TerryDee99633 views
fascism pays......i hate fascism. no pasaran. alerta alerta antifascista
SuperEarther 7 months ago