Lancaster and Morecambe TUC will be holding an open meeting on Thursday 1st March 2012 to plan a week of events for May Day.

The TUC are keen to hear ideas about celebrating May Day (either as International Labour Day or as the more traditional festival), demonstrating against cuts, celebrating trade unionism, celebrating occupation, or whatever you want May Day to be.

They are hoping to see a week of events from the 1st to the 6th, with rallies, speakers, gigs, performances, etc. in the Lancaster area, complementing events already being prepared by other local groups.

The usual TUC march and rally in Lancaster will take place on Saturday 5th May.

Lancaster’s May Day-releated events are to take place against a backdrop of increasing attacks on working people, on claimants, on those on benefits of every kind and the NHS.

There’s also concern that the ConDem government is doing its utmost to remove the May Day holiday from the calendar, a time known across the world as the day to celebrate trade unionism and workers’ organizations.

Given that many of the cuts already put in place will come into force on 1st April, there are likely to be a lot of people seeing the impact in their pay packets at the end of that month and the TUC see this as an ideal opportunity to mobilize public opinion.

• The venue for the meeting has yet to be confirmed, please see Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts for info