Patricia Logue hails ‘single biggest day of industrial action in a generation’

The Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council thanked Derry Trades Union Council for organising Thursday’s major strike rally in Derry city centre.

Speaking from a platform in Guildhall Square she spoke in support of workers’ demands for a pay rise.

“You should not have had to take to the streets in the freezing cold for the pay rise you are entitled to, and you wholeheartedly deserve.

“I want to extend my solidarity to the 170,000 or more workers and your families as you battle through the worst cost of living crisis in living memory without a pay rise in two years.

“You are on the streets today and speaking with one voice,” she stated.

Councillor Logue told the rally that the money is available to meet the trade union pay demands and that ‘it is within the gift of [Secretary of State] Chris Heaton-Harris to implement that now’.

“You should not be held to ransom in reckless game-playing between the DUP and the British Government. It is totally unacceptable that one party and their blockade of the Assembly is denying you the pay rise you have worked hard for.

“Let me be crystal clear; if the DUP continue to block the Executive from meeting and delivering your pay rise, the British Secretary of State should immediately deliver that pay rise.

“There can be no more excuses and no more delays,” said the mayor.

She referred to what she described as ‘13 years of savage and chronic Tory cuts and underfunding from London’, stating that this had ‘decimated our public services’.

“This is a stark reality they have been forced to admit over recent weeks.

“Now the blockade of the Executive and the Assembly is costing public services £3 billion in extra funding,” she said.

Colr. Logue said it was inspiring to see the ‘huge gathering of workers and families here today’.

“We must stand together against Tory cuts to frontline services,” she stated.