Union members, councillors and members of the public stood in unity in Reading town centre today in a show of support against the 'gross injustice' they feel is happening across the country.

This Reading Resists march and rally joins a host of trade unions up and down the country who have been saying ‘enough is enough’.

According to the president of Reading Trade Union, today’s rally also introduced a new campaign to tackle climate change, which they will be putting to the government.  

Nikki Dancey, President of the Reading Trade Union said: “People genuinely have had enough. There are five key demands that we are putting out and one is to make our tax fair for all. 

“The energy companies are racking in massive profits; however we need decent housing for all and Reading Resist has added in an extra claim to stop climate change. 

“Workers and members of the community have had enough of the excesses of capitalism. They’ve had enough of seeing the gross unfairness of some of the energy companies and their directors six figure bonuses. 

“It’s an absolute disgrace that the working class are being treated like this by a government that is utterly out of touch and doesn’t understand how most people’s lives simply are.”

John Gillman, a member of Unite the Union said: “I’m here to support the strikes that are taking place.

“Workers deserve a really decent pay rise for the work that they do because at the same time oil and energy companies are making massive profits that could pay these workers several times over.

“It’s so important for all the unions to come together today because unity is strength and the more disruption that workers can cause the more those bosses will be forced to concede to give them the pay rises that they actually deserve.”

Green Party Councillor Louise Keane also attended the march, and the rally today to support the trade unions across Reading. 

She said: “The slogan for today says it all. We’re all tired and exhausted and we’ve been treated quite badly by various institutions who are making billions off the backs of people who are struggling to heat their homes.

“Our health and social care services are collapsing. Everything is just going wrong and nothing’s working anymore.

“I think it’s important to just express ourselves and to say why we are here and galvanising ourselves into actually making a stand.”

Throughout the strikes, Rishi Sunak has stayed firm in his decision to not bow to unions' demands. The Prime Minister says thay any pay increase within the public sector will increase inflation in the long term.

As he spoke at the G20 summit in Bali, the prime minister said that it was a "tragedy" that workers were having to turn to food banks."

However, following this he said that salary hikes sought by some unions were "unaffordable". This included the 17 percent rise that the Royal College of Nursing sought.