G20 told: Put people ahead of banks

TORONTO, Canada— Ten thousand people marched against the G20 summit Saturday to protest for jobs and social causes.

The marchers urged the G20 to put people ahead of financial institutions.

“It wasn’t the workers of the world that caused the financial crisis,” Sid Ryan of the Ontario Federation of Labor said in a speech. “We don’t want to see a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector.”

“The people, united, will never be defeated,” steelworkers and their unionized brethren shouted back, placards poking through rips in a tapestry of umbrellas that read: “Long live socialism” and “Scrap the summits.”

Their issues include the legitimacy of the G20 itself, and jobs. “We don’t want G20 countries to cut stimulus spending until jobs recover,” Jeff Atkinson, spokesman for the Canadian Labour Congress, told AFP.

Greenpeace International Director Kumi Naidoo argued that if G20 countries could spend billions of dollars to rescue banks in trouble, why not find money to help unemployed workers, for the environment, and for social causes.

Student activist Liana Salvador lamented that she was $50,000 in debt for school.

“I’m an ordinary student whose parents taught me that knowledge is power, but whose government says education is just expensive.”

“Do only the rich deserve to learn?” she demanded.

“One billion for education, not fortification,” she shouted, lamenting the billion-dollar cost of securing the G8 and G20 summits in the Toronto area.

“Let’s come together and unite the labor movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement… and we can move mountains,” Ryan said. –Michel Comte, Agence France-Presse