MORE than 1,000 people marched through Manchester on Saturday in protest against the government’s austerity programme.

At a rally after the march general secretary Dave Prentis of public service union Unison gave a warning to the Labour Party leadership.

“If they want our people to vote, it won’t be just because they don’t like the Tories, they have got to have a vision of a better, fairer society,” he said.

“We in the union movement will not forget also that it was new Labour that built the bridges that the Tories now walk over, and we will not allow that to happen again.”

Mr Prentis called on Labour to commit itself to ending zero-hours contracts, the bedroom tax, privatisation of the National Health Service, and the coalition’s attempts to stifle public opposition through the Lobbying Act.

Unison is balloting its 350,000 health service members on industrial action over pay.

“That is the start of our campaign which will run and run and run until this austerity agenda is kicked out into the gutter where it belongs,” said Mr Prentis.

The march and rally were organised by Unison and Manchester Trades Union Council. It was backed by unions including public-sector union PCS and general unions Unite and GMB and by campaigners against blacklisting and the bedroom tax.

Attacking Tony Blair and new Labour, Mr Prentis said: “It’s not just the Tories and Lib Dems — we know what they are like, using the problems we have got for their own ends to reduce the state and get rid of our National Health Service.”

He also took aim at current Labour leader Ed Milliband for opposing strike action by over 1 million public-sector workers over pay on July 10.

“It’s our Labour Party, nobody else’s,” Mr Prentis said.

“And when we take action in October we expect our Labour Party and its leadership to support us. They are in opposition, not to oppose us, but to oppose the Tories.”

He called for a massive turn-out at the Britain Needs a Pay Rise demonstration in London on October 18.