At the TUC march last weekend – which was attended by over
150,000 people – a group of unemployed youngsters from the Black Country met
with Labour leader Ed Miliband to talk about their desperate search to find work.
Speaking at the A Future That Works rally, Ed Miliband said
how important it was that young unemployed people had joined the TUC march. In
particular, he referenced Ashley Parsons, 20, a member of the TUC’s youth
unemployment campaign group from Wolverhampton, when he said:
“I am here to join
with people from all walks of life ...Young people looking for work. Like Ashley
Parsons from Wolverhampton ...Let us say we stand with all the young people who
want to work in Britain today.”
Straight after delivering his speech Ed Miliband met with Ashley
and other young unemployed people backstage at Hyde Park. The group
included Dwayne Foster, 21, from Dudley, and Fiona Myers, 20, from Stourbridge,
who are also active members of the TUC's campaign against youth
unemployment. The Labour leader spoke to each young person and heard of
their frustration at being unemployed and their anger that the number of jobs
on offer has shrunk as a direct result of the government’s austerity
policies.
Ashley Parsons
delivered one of the closing speeches from the stage at Hyde Park where he
described his experiences of being unemployed. He spoke of being a
victim of the cuts which have drastically reduced the public sector in the
Black Country, the main provider of employment in the area. Ashley
finished his speech with the words:
“Young people are not only the future, we are the here and
now and right now I say to you, Mr Cameron, we need jobs not cuts.”
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