Bernie Sanders

A US senator and former candidate to be the Democrat Party US presidential nominee gave a rallying cry to striking workers at an event in Bloomsbury on Wednesday night.

Bernie Sanders told a packed rally at the Trades Union Congress HQ in Great Russell Street that working people needed to show unity and join forces to help win pay deals, better terms and conditions and a fairer society.

Appearing at the event organised by the National Union of Railway, Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) on Wednesday night, he said: “The only way that justice ever comes about, the only way that working people ever make success is when we stand up, we take them on and we win. That’s what this struggle is about.

“Let us go toe-to-toe together, let us go forward together, keep our eyes on the prize, let’s take on corporate greed and transform the world’s economy.”

About 600 people attended the event at the Trades Union Congress headquarters in Bloomsbury

The 80-year-old spoke as part of a visit to the UK with his family; including grandchildren and brother Larry were in attendance. The event billed to Save London’s Transport also coincided with a strike by postal workers with the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU).

As the keynote speaker, Mr Sanders was met with a standing ovation from the 600 people in the audience before he even uttered a word, as he walked across the stage in a blue suit and blue shirt. However once he had dispensed with his jacket, his trademark gestures were there, a outstretched hand to punctuate points, and his arms opened wide in bemusement at the current economic and political situation. He decried millions of people living in abject poverty, billionaires having more wealth than millions of people in the US and UK and record profits while people struggle to pay their rent or basic goods.

He said: “There is no moral justification for a small number of multi billionaires to have more wealth than they will spend in 1000 lifetimes, while people are going hungry or living out on the streets. In the UK and in the US we have got to get our priorities right, and that means creating an economy and a government that work for all not just a few.

Sanders spoke alongside union bosses including Mick Lynch and Mick Whelan

“We are living in a time where we are seeing increased pain and suffering for working families, and certainly this inflation that you and we are going through is making  a bad situation worse. Our job right now internationally is to stand together, our job right now is to bring people all over the world together to make it clear to the oligarchs that there day and their power is ending.”

He appeared alongside RMT trade union leader Mick Lynch, who has been the face of industrial action in the UK this summer. The duo shared a brief embrace as Mr Sanders left the stage. The general secretary of train drivers union Aslef Mick Whelan addressed the room, as did others including CWU rep Hannah Carroll, Unite bus organiser Onay Kaseb and disability campaigner Barbara Lisicki.

The rally came a day after the latest funding deal between Transport for London and the Department for Transport, that gave London’s transport authority cash until March 2024, but means that fares will have to go up, pension funds will be cut and staff cuts could be needed. TfL has not yet confirmed whether planned bus cuts will go ahead.

‘We have to unite up all of our communities’ RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said

Ms Lisicki said that proposed cuts to staffing on national railway networks and in London could lead to disabled passengers being stranded, due to a lack of assistance and staff to help put ramps on to trains.

In a night that saw union figure after union figure decry the government and private transport bodies for not paying fair wages or giving terms and conditions to workers that they wanted, Lynch took to the stage joking that his speech had already been stolen. If it had been stolen, his thunder remained intact.

“What we’ve got in front of us here is a defensive dispute we are running along with the other trade unions,” he said. “That goes for the national railway and it goes for London transport. They have got their tanks on our lawn right now, and they’ve got their tanks on the lawn of the working class if you’re lucky to have one.

Communication Workers Union rep Hannah Carroll with Postman Pat

“Every single public service that we have built since the second world war in the settlement that Attlee brought to us is under attack, whether it’s the health service, the care service, the education services, the transport services. Every single one of them is under attack and the unions and the Labour movement have to keep this fightback going and spread it right across the country starting now.

“We have to unite up all of our communities, the trade unions, they have got to be a physical presence in those communities, those communities that we have lost to our ideas over the last 20-30 years, the people who have given up on the Labour movement, the people who haven’t got an idea of how to organise collectively, we have got to mentor them to get residents associations going, rent payers associations going, young peoples organisations going politically, what ever it takes the unions have got to be there and we can’t leave it to the professional political class to get it done. It was our job back in the 1890s and its our job today.”