A HUGE job of work has been done already to get the marchers this far. But when you're on the road for days you don't need the worry of wondering whether there will be enough money to fill the minibus with petrol or to buy the next meal that isn't being provided - let alone to pay for the transport to Amsterdam.
We need to strain every last muscle to ensure that the march gets to the Intergovernmental Conterence on June 14 - and that the work of the campaign against unemployment, job insecurity and social exclusion can continue beyond this point.
We need donations however large or small you can manage. Sponsor a marcher for a week - or for the whole thing. Organise a collection in your work place. Set up a stall in your area and collect signatures for the petition and money... • Make cheques payable to European Marches 1997 and send to Glen Voris, c/o St Helens TUC Resource Centre. 21-31 Barrow St, St Helens WA10 1RD.
sacked Magnet worker I'm often asked why I support this march to Europe and why the Magnet workers support it.
Well, I haven't got a job and it's a march for the unemployed.
I'm struggling with benefits and it sa maren in tavour or decent welfare provision.
I have a home, but there's a lot of people in this country don't have a home, and there's a lot of people across Europe don't have a home and they need to be helped and supported and some of them can't fight for themselves.
It's not just in the North of England that people are being deskilled - there are people in Germany, France and Italy being deskilled, too. They are fighting against the same things as we are -poor working conditions, poor pay, attacks on benefits, and so on.
I'd like to welcome all the marchers here today. I think they must be very brave.
They've got to have a lot of stamina and I hope that at the end ot the marcn they re still there. strong, happy, smiling....
I hope everyone is coming to the social tonight and bringing lots of money - because we need lots of money both for the marchers and for the Magnet strikers..
The marchers need money to keep marching and get across to Amsterdam and attend the Intergovernmental Summit on June 14. Terry Conway The nine-month strike at Magnet in Darlington has seen a level of intimidation which is fortunately unusual in industrial disputes in Britain. Lynne Fawcett from the Magnet Support Group spoke at the rally to welcome the Euromarchers in Darlington. She had a clear message for Tony Blair... "I WAS extremely proud to be in Jarrow on Monday. My grandfather actually walked from Jarrow 100 years ago with his family. He was about 9 or 10, and there were ten of them who walked down from Jarrow to Darlington to live.
My great-grandfather had been made a police sergeant here. It took them a week to get here and they were quite a lucky family because he had a secure job and somewhere to go and live and a roof over his head.
A hundred years later nothing much has changed, has it? People are still having to walk miles for jobs, and they're lucky if they can find one....
The men of Magnet were sacked for principles, and you people are marching for principles, and I can only support you totally.
I have three children of my own in their 20s and I'm extremely lucky they are all working. What Magnet have done - I'm terrified the same thing could be done to my son and my two daughters.
I'm extremely grateful that my last child is female - not because the hormonal monster is easier to handle than bolshie boys - but because at least she stands some chance of getting some sort of work. I'm ashamed to say that a sixteen year old lad today in Darlington doesn't have a cat in hell's chance.
Then they wonder why the lads are all absolutely demented. If you give people prospects and jobs they usually turn round and look after their own. All we want is security.
Why are quarter of a million just wasting? These kids aren't bad, there are very few bad kids around. OK so they drink and they're up to all sorts - we've all been up to all sorts when we were younger. They're no more vicious than we were.
It's just that when you were fifteen or sixteen you got a kick up the backside, and you went out to work and you earned the money - and you went home proud and you gave your mum some housekeeping, and then you went out and spent your money.
You became self-sufficient and proud of yourself and got some self respect and self esteem.
And they wonder why these kids between fifteen and sixteen have nothing except drink, drugs, misery, poverty and absolutely no hope. It's because we have actually failed them We really haye.
And now we've got rid of the ToREINSTATE Raising the banner of solidarity: Lynne Fawcett (right) ries, Tony Blair is not going to fail us is he? I understood that he had something like a 180 majority - now if my sums are right that means he can push through anything that he has a mind to do - anything at all.
GCHQ - he's sorted them out after thirteen years, Well I'm not waiting thirteen years for him to sort Magnet out. We all deserve self-esteem.
When you take men's jobs away their whole self esteem and self worth collapses. Your motivation goes out of your family life, you lose your security and the knock-on effect for the whole town is less money, less prospects and more poverty.
There's enough poverty in Darlington - we don't need any more.
They say there's at least ten per cent unemployed - well we know the figures are massaged so much you might as well just make a figure up. So shall I just say there's 35 per cent unemployed in Darlington -that's as good a guess as their 10 per cent, I'm sure. We're not going to take much more of this... Everybody in this town deserves the chance ofa job. Whether you've got a million pounds in your pocket or only got one pound you've only got one life, twenty four hours in every day. Everybody deserves the chance to do something. While it might be the case that full employment is my ideal and the dream is just utopian but it's got to be better to aim for than mass unemployment, no rights, no welfare state, the health service crumbling and just poverty spreading right across the town...
During the election I read that Alan Sugar was prepared to vote Labour because Labour was prepared not to put up taxes. Now as far as I'm concerned he's got millions so why should he bother?
I haven't got millions but I'm quite prepared to pay a little bit more if it's spread more evenly so that everybody gets a fair share instead of the top lot keeping so much for themselves.
So I support you very much on your principle of walking from Jarrow all the way to Amsterdam-and I hope you all enjoy the night tonight when we have a social....
ask for union help -- which fortunately was not offered.
It is a scandal that the local Labour MPs have been silent in the face of the disgusting treatment the strikers have
Showroom N