Picket forces cancellation of recruitment day

antrim | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Thursday February 01, 2007 19:22 by non-payer - We Won't Pay Campaign wewontpay at btconnect dot com 028 90 311778

We Won't Pay Campaign 1 Echo 0

Congratulsations to everyone who took part in todays successful picket, the first of many!

Picket forces Echo to cancel it's recruitment day

The We Won’t Pay Campaign claimed their protest today a victory after it was announced that Echo Managed Services, the company responsible for recovering unpaid water charges on behalf of the new water company Northern Ireland Water Ltd., had cancelled it’s much publicised open recruitment day.

Secretary of the We Won’t Pay Campaign Gary Mulcahy speaking at the protest today warned Echo that today’s protest was the first of many to target it’s headquarters on Upper Queen St in Belfast.

Mr Mulcahy said “ This company is a consortium of multi-national companies who specialise in debt recovery for water companies in Britain. It is a scandal that the Government is paying Echo £70million of taxpayers money to harass and intimidate people into paying water charges, which we already pay for through the rates. We would also like to remind people that this is the same company that labelled working class communities in northern Ireland as being ‘Rock Bottom’.

We want to send a clear message to Echo today that they will not get away with threatening people into paying the water double-tax. People are not rock bottom, but on the contrary are rock solid behind the We Won’t Pay Campaign’s call for mass non-payment of these charges.”

'Unforeseen circumstances'