PRESS RELEASE from Sighthill United*

PICNIC ON THE PICKET LINE
Sighthill United unity with firefighters!

Join the Picnic-Barbecue Tuesday 28th January 1-3pm Springburn Fire Station Petershill Road, just off Springburn Road, North Glasgow, near Tesco's

PRESS CONFERENCE is at 2pm, with Strathclyde FBU, Sighthill United and North Glasgow Hospitals UNISON branch

Our battle-cry:

* Join the firefighters' fight - they fight for us all!
* SOS - Save our Station!
* Support the FBU!

Besides the usual buffet-barbecue food, Sighthill United in conjunction with asylum seekers from various countries, are preparing and bringing along plates of food from different cultures - an expression of real solidarity.

Local unions, workers and students are also giving support to the picnic. For example, North Glasgow Hospitals UNISON branch have donated 200 pounds just for this event.

Sighthill United consider that what we are doing, uniting our community and other local unions/workers behind our firefighters' just request for decent pay and to save our station from closure - is the type of unity needed with every single fire station.

Stevie Masterson, a Sighthill community organiser, says:

"Blair will not pay firefighters a decent wage, nor pay for proper health and education - but he readily spends billions on a murderous war for US-UK oil companies. The increasingly vicious wave of Labour and media attacks on asylum seekers is to create scapegoats and divide the growing fightback on all fronts. These wars against our workers, asylum seekers and Iraqi people all serve to make the rich richer, and make workers and the poor pay at home and abroad. Our call behind our firefighters must be for "mass civil disobedience" - as several MSPs have called for in the war against Iraqi people. Only by other public sector workers joining in and breaking the anti-union laws en-masse - will Blair be defeated. At our picnic, we will scream, "Enough is enough - fightback time!"

*Sighthill United is the umbrella body for SIghthill community organisations that was born after the murder of asylum seeker Firsat Yildiz, 20 months ago.