Day of action held in Eastbourne over energy bill increase

Unite Community members met in Terminus Road on Tuesday, April 1, between 11.30am and 1pm, as part of a nationwide day of action.

It was part of the Unite Energy 4 All campaign which calls for ‘the eradication of fuel poverty, and the national control of our energy resources’.

Protest events were held across the UK in around 40 locations with Unite members joining with other fuel poverty and pensioner groups to draw attention to ‘the fact that in the sixth richest economy, eight million people struggle to pay their energy bills and on average 7,000 people die each year because they are unable to keep warm in their own homes’.

Among the campaigners in Eastbourne was Louise Walton, secretary of Eastbourne Trades Council, who said that energy needs to be taken into ‘public ownership’ and that energy prices need to be addressed.

She said: “We’re here today for Unite community as union organisers for people who are unemployed and ex-union members in the community.

"We’ve got 40 members up and down the country saying ‘Unite for energy for all’ and bring energy into public ownership.

"There are 7,000 people in the country dying from cold. There shouldn’t be a choice between heating and eating.

"The prices need to be addressed and energy needs to be taken back into public ownership. On a day like this, a day they’re calling ‘Awful April’, energy bills are going up and up and up and wages aren’t matching it.

"We’re here to say enough is enough and we demand change, we want it now. Stop impoverishing the poor, stop hitting the vulnerable in our community.”

Unite has said that it believes energy regulator Ofgem has ‘totally failed to regulate our nation's energy market’.

Simon Coop, Unite’s National Officer for Energy & Utilities said: “Unite is unique as a Trade Union in organising in the workplace and the community, and our Industrial members in the Energy sector are right behind Unite Community’s day of action.

“OFGEM have failed to protect consumers. For too long they have sided with the profiteering energy companies over the most vulnerable in our country.