Archive for April 2009
1 April 2009
March for Jobs 2 April: I think this campaign is really important. I know how useless you can feel being unemployed, especially for long periods of time. I've had my fair share of horrible jobs that I was unable to give up because...
1 April 2009
The grim reality of job-hunting
Mary and her fiancé John spoke to The Socialist about their experiences of trying to find a decent job in London...
1 April 2009
Gordon Brown meets the bankers
On 26 March, those who passed through Walthamstow town square in east London came across a very incongruous sight, writes Kay Shipway.
1 April 2009
Sack the bankers not the workers!
Over 100 people thronged the streets of Wigan on 21 March. We were marching on a cold, grey Saturday afternoon against the looming cuts and privatisation facing those who work in and use council services...
1 April 2009
Socialist stands in Aslef leadership elections
Train driver Pete McNally is standing for election to the rail union Aslef executive committee, in district number six...
1 April 2009
College teachers strike in Eastbourne
NUT members at Park College, part of Sussex Downs college in Eastbourne, struck on 24 March over proposed changes to their contracts that would downgrade their positions, writes Phil Clarke, Lewes, Eastbourne and Wealden NUT Secretary, personal capacity.
1 April 2009
Unison needs a fighting leadership: Leeds City Council
Most Leeds city council workers learned with alarm about the council's intention to impose job cuts and erode our conditions of service from 1 April in a letter and through local news channels in February...
1 April 2009
Porters at Whipps Cross Hospital east London have voted overwhelmingly to be balloted for strike action by their union Unison...
1 April 2009
Crucial elections are taking place in Unison for the national executive council. The current leadership under Dave Prentis, tied in with New Labour, are seeking to strengthen their grip on the union through...
1 April 2009
Now that the profits are drying up in the Indian software industry
A JOURNALIST friend recently asked me how recession is affecting India's software professionals. He wanted to write a story on how recession has adversely affected the lifestyle of software professionals,...
1 April 2009
Sweden: Socialist councillor viciously assaulted by Nazis
ON SUNDAY 22 March, Mattias Bernhardsson, who is a city councillor for Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (RS - CWI, Sweden) was the victim of a brutal, planned assault by a group of Nazis, writes socialisterna.org, (CWI, Sweden).
1 April 2009
The G20 leaders have no solution to the crisis...
*The right to a decent job for all.
*We won't pay for the bosses' crisis!
*No to job losses. Open the account books to let workers see where the profits have gone...
1 April 2009
Free market system killing our planet
Most scientists now agree that climate change is a very real and immediate danger -temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting and precipitation levels are changing, writes Sarah Wrack.
1 April 2009
200 Visteon car plant workers in Belfast are blockading their factory after the company went into administration today...
1 April 2009
Visteon workers occupy Belfast factory
Visteon workers in Belfast have started an occupation of the former Ford car parts factory. Administrators KPMG have only offered the 200-plus workers paltry statutory redundancy payments, writes John Maguire, Unite convenor spoke to The Socialist from the occupation:.
4 April 2009
Visteon workers picket plant- Update
Workers at Basildon were given six minutes notice that they were fired...
6 April 2009
Report from Socialist Party members on the Basildon Visteon pickets.
7 April 2009
Youth march for jobs: This is only the beginning!
The G20 meeting, hosted by Gordon Brown, in London was met with an outpouring of anger. However, of all the many protests against the summit, the 'youth march for jobs' on 2 April stood out a mile.
7 April 2009
G20 Summit protests: Democratic rights trampled on
YET AGAIN the right to protest is under attack. Last week's anti-G20 demonstrations were greeted with a violent and heavy handed response by the police. Protesters were hit with truncheons and contained...
7 April 2009
EU presses for cuts in public spending
LAST WEEK'S summit of European Union (EU) finance ministers gave the British government six months to come up with plans to cut public spending...
7 April 2009
Stop the slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka
The ghastly slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka continues daily and an official 'end' to the war will not mean an end to this nightmare, writes Elizabeth Clarke, Committee for a Workers' International.
7 April 2009
Visteon car workers fight for their rights
Many have been inspired by the stand taken by the workers in the ex-Ford plants in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon...
7 April 2009
National Union of Teachers Conference: Call national action on workload
What kind of a work/life balance is there for any teacher working a 52-hour week? More like all work/no life! Linda Taaffe writes.
7 April 2009
No solution at London G20 summit
"THEY ARE not talking about us. They don't care about people like us." This is the verdict on the London capitalist G20 summit of a worker occupying, together with others, the Visteon car parts firm...
8 April 2009
IF YOU judged the atmosphere on student campuses by the policy that got passed at National Union of Students (NUS) conference, you wouldn't have known that there have been occupations and protests against the Israeli invasion of Gaza or that many universities are facing savage spending cuts, writes Iain Dalton, Bangor University Socialist Students.
8 April 2009
Solidarity with Kazakhstan oil workers
Nearly 2,000 workers at the Burgylai oil wells at Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan, are on strike demanding the nationalisation of their plant and that the government take emergency measures to stabilise the economic situation, stop mass sackings and guarantee the payment of wage arrears...
8 April 2009
MPs' gravy train: HOUSING minister Margaret Beckett is the latest government minister to be caught with her hand in the parliamentary expenses till...
8 April 2009
Unite convenor Rob Williams makes the point that the Visteon workers' struggle is important for all workers...
8 April 2009
Stockport cab drivers fight deregulation
While over 100 journalists from local newspapers under threat gathered inside Manchester town hall on a Friday night to discuss the way forward, one in every three of Stockport's black cab drivers circled the building in a show of support, writes Hugh Caffrey, Manchester.
8 April 2009
No cuts to further education in Wales!
On 1 April, around five hundred students, lecturers and other further education (FE) college staff from across Wales protested and lobbied Welsh Assembly members over threatened redundancies and cuts to funding, pay and conditions, writes Alec Thraves.
8 April 2009
Campaign forces suspension of Wirral library closures
Following a four-month campaign by local communities and the opportunist intervention of local politicians of all parties, Wirral council's library closure programme has been suspended, writes Dave Lunn, Wirral Against the Cuts (WAC) steering committee, personal capacity.
8 April 2009
Important elections are taking place in Unison. The existing leadership is trying to strengthen its grip on the union through witch-hunts and other bureaucratic means. But the Reclaim the Union campaign...
8 April 2009
Rail union TSSA members gathered to protest at 160 redundancies outside the East Midlands Trains (EMT) HQ in Derby on 31 March. They had a joint meeting with RMT the same evening, writes Graham Lewis, Long Eaton trades council.
8 April 2009
Egyptian regime: 'Scared that independent unions will succeed; scared a revolution will happen'
ONE OF the most important recent developments in the struggle of Egyptian workers for decent living standards and democratic rights was the formation of the first independent trade union (syndicate) for over 50 years, last December...
8 April 2009
Arundhati Roy indicts the Sri Lankan Rajapakse regime
ON 30 March, it felt as if the city of Chennai waited with intense expectation as the famous writer, Arundhati Roy, was due to deliver a speech in a public meeting condemning the war in Sri Lanka, writes Venkat Narasimham, New Socialist Alternative (CWI, India).
8 April 2009
Reports from Visteon plants in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon
The battle to save jobs at Visteon is still going on. The occupations and the determination of the 600 Visteon workers to fight back against big business attempts to make them pay for the crisis has inspired...
14 April 2009
Visteon protests outside Fords dealerships
in Dagenham, Romford, Billericay, Grays and Basildon
14 April 2009
The battle to defeat the Poll Tax
A landmark in working class struggle TWENTY YEARS ago the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced the hated poll tax, first in Scotland to be followed one year later in England and Wales...
15 April 2009
Youth Fight for Jobs: What next to build the campaign?
Support for 'Youth Fight for Jobs' (YFJ) continues to grow. John McDonnell MP has now given his support. The national launch conference of YFJ, on Saturday 9 May at University College London, is the next big event for this important campaign.
15 April 2009
Deceptive denigration of Lindsey strike
The strike by the Lindsey oil refinery construction workers at the end of January and beginning of February was an inspirational struggle against the 'race to the bottom'...
15 April 2009
National Union of Teachers conference: Battle on workload begins
Teachers' anger at the pay and workload they face was clear at this year's National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference, writes Dave Reid reports from NUT conference in Cardiff.
15 April 2009
European elections: Why No2EU?
The Socialist Party is backing the No2EU-Yes to Democracy coalition in June's European elections. The European Union's directives and rulings, enthusiastically implemented by the New Labour government, are linked to the avalanche of job losses, wage cuts and continued privatisation that we face, Clive Heemskerk explains.
15 April 2009
Visteon workers angry and determined
Basildon: THE STRUGGLE of workers at Visteon plants has inspired many other workers whose jobs are threatened. The occupations and mass pickets at the Belfast, Basildon and Enfield plants have forced the management...
15 April 2009
London Underground: Set a new strike date
THE RAIL union RMT received a massive democratic mandate from the 41% of members who voted in our recent strike ballot at London Underground, writes Reg Johnstone.
15 April 2009
Stead McAlpin: THE SIXTY workers in Carlisle sacked by textile and dyeing company Stead McAlpin see the similarities of their situation to that of sacked Visteon workers, writes Elaine Brunskill.
15 April 2009
Preparing to fight probation meltdown
PROBATION AREAS in England and Wales face budget cuts of between 13% and 25% over the next three years, writes Andy Ducker, Napo convenor, South Yorkshire branch.
15 April 2009
G20 Summit death: Bring the cops to account
THE DEATH of Ian Tomlinson, a bystander at the G20 summit protests, at the hands of a baton wielding officer of the London Metropolitan police is a scandal...
15 April 2009
Thailand: Battles erupt on the streets of Bangkok
A TEMPORARY calm has returned to the streets of Bangkok and other cities of Thailand. On 14 April, protest leader Prateep Ungsongtham Hata said: "We held talks among the leaders since last night and have...
15 April 2009
The Spanish Civil War: Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory
THE SPANISH civil war (1936-39) was the bloodiest stage in the ten year-long Spanish revolution that began in 1931. As Hannah Sell explains, Spain was a further confirmation of Leon Trotsky's theory of 'permanent revolution', which was earlier borne out in the Russian workers' socialist revolution of 1917.
15 April 2009
Sri Lanka: Stop the war - fight for democratic rights
AFTER A week of escalating protests worldwide against the mounting slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Rajapakse government announced a two-day halt to the fighting with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, writes Elizabeth Clarke, Committee for a Workers' International.
15 April 2009
Stop the war in Sri Lanka: Protest at India House
SHOUTING "NOT a rupee, not a bullet for the Rajapakse government", 100 protesters marched around India House on the Aldwych in London...
15 April 2009
Council manoeuvres in Lewisham hit school children
AT LEWISHAM council's recent Annual General Meeting, the two Socialist Party councillors Ian Page and myself put forward an emergency motion, writes Chris Flood, Lewisham Socialist party councillor.
15 April 2009
Parents occupy schools in Glasgow to stop closures
PARENTS AT two closure threatened Glasgow schools have taken the bold and courageous step to occupy school buildings, writes Eric Stevenson, CWI, Glasgow.
15 April 2009
Let yourself go: SOME FIVE million workers in the US have lost their jobs since the start of the current recession. But while mass unemployment is a cause of widespread misery and hardship, to some TV producers it's an...
15 April 2009
Moldova: Thousands storm parliament buildings as economic crisis worsens
Youth and workers need alternative to pro-market, ethnic-based parties: ON 7 April, thousands of youth stormed and set fire to the parliament building in Kishinau, the capital of Moldova, Europe's poorest country, writes Rob Jones, CWI, Moscow.
15 April 2009
Rugby league: In League with big business?
AS TOP-flight football becomes more and more under the control of ridiculously wealthy individuals and businesses, we can learn from the creation of another of England's most played and supported sports...
15 April 2009
MPs' snouts in the expenses trough
For workers' MPs on a worker's wage: EVERY DAY the press and TV carry stories of cabinet ministers 'on the make' and of MPs mimicking their political superiors' dubious ethics. And, they tell us, it is all perfectly legal, writes Roger Shrives.
22 April 2009
National Shop Stewards Network conference
Saturday 27 June
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London WC1
11.30am-4.30pm
See www.shopstewards.net
22 April 2009
Solidarity with the Visteon Workers
Socialist Party public meeting
Solidarity with the Visteon Workers
Thursday 23 April, 7.30pm
Room 101, University London Union,
Malet Street, London WC1
Speakers from Enfield and Basildon
22 April 2009
Betrayals that led to Thatcher's victory
Britain in the 1970s: 30 years ago, the Tory Party leader Margaret Thatcher won a general election which was to prove a sea change in British politics. Thatcher promoted a virulent form of free-market capitalism.
22 April 2009
European elections: a workers' alternative to New Labour takes shape
THE No2EU-Yes to Democracy electoral coalition, led by the RMT rail workers' union, took a big step forward last week when the national steering committee met to discuss the campaign's candidates for June's European elections...
22 April 2009
NUT fringe meeting: Reflecting the interest this electoral initiative has sparked, over 70 people packed into a meeting room to hear the case for the No2EU - yes to democracy campaign...
22 April 2009
New Labour's environmental ploy: How green are electric cars?
DESPERATE TO arrest his precipitous decline in the opinion polls, Gordon Brown has announced an incentive scheme to give people up to £5,000 towards the cost of trading in their old car for an electric one, writes Ken Douglas.
22 April 2009
G20 Summit death: Independent inquiry into police violence, now!
AS REVELATIONS continue, surrounding the policing of the G20 and in particular the tragic killing of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the police, questions about the role of officers and the specific tactics of 'kettling' (containing demonstrators for hours inside police cordons) increase, writes Greg Maughan.
22 April 2009
Tamil action to stop the war continues
STOP THE Slaughter of Tamils (SST) campaign followed up on the massive national demonstration against the war in Sri Lanka on 11 April with a public meeting in central London, writes Manny Thain.
22 April 2009
Unison: a fighting and democratic union needed
Important elections are taking place for the national executive of Unison, elections that could have a decisive effect on the future of the public sector union...
22 April 2009
Visteon workers stand up to bosses
The struggle of the Visteon workers at the Basildon, Enfield and Belfast plants continues into its fourth week as the workers remain determined to force the employers to honour their contracts...
22 April 2009
Taking the Visteon struggle forward
The Visteon struggle is entering its fourth week and a critical phase. The occupation at Belfast is continuing and if anything strengthening. And the Belfast workers have led a major march for jobs in...
22 April 2009
Basildon workers picket Ford showrooms
Eleanor Donne spoke to Frank Jepson, convenor and Robert Fitch of Basildon Visteon...
22 April 2009
Enfield workers say: "Do a Visteon!"
Linda Taaffe visited the 24-hour picket at the Visteon factory gate in Enfield, and spoke to some of the workers - Julie, Shane and Chris...
22 April 2009
Disbelief at Visteon bosses' offer
There was a sense of disbelief and outright anger when the outcome of the talks with Visteon management started to filter through to the Enfield site picket lines, writes Mick Cotter.
22 April 2009
SUPERMARKET GIANT Tesco declared profits for 2008-09 of £3.1 billion, an all-time record for a UK retailer and 10% up on the company's previous year's profit...
22 April 2009
Ireland: Budget savages workers
Feature: The Central Bank of Ireland says the Irish economy contracted by 3% last year and will contract by 7% this year and another 3% next year...
22 April 2009
Stead McAlpin: Protesting in London
Last week The Socialist reported on the sacking of Stead McAlpin workers in Carlisle. Stead McAlpin's parent company Apex recently bought the firm from John Lewis Partnership, who had assured workers...
22 April 2009
Postal workers' solidarity action
Members of the CWU at the Royal Mail sorting office in Woolwich took industrial action on 31 March and 14 April demanding the full reinstatement of victimised worker Andy Holman, a delivery worker who was sacked just before Christmas last year, writes Paul Callanan.
22 April 2009
Wales FE funding: Victory, but keep the champagne on ice
The Welsh Assembly has performed a partial u-turn on Further Education (FE) funding in Wales, coming up with an additional £8.93 million in an announcement on 15 April, writes Ron Job, Unison steward Gorseinon college, personal capacity.
22 April 2009
22 April 2009
Launch conference: 9 May 10am - 4.30pm
Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1, UCL, London WC1E 6BT
£3 / £5 / £10. Gig afterwards
22 April 2009
In April 1989, 96 people died at the Hillsborough football ground. The majority were under 30 years of age, and more than a third were under 20 years. The youngest to die was a boy of ten years. The cause...
22 April 2009
THE US Justice Department revealed last week detailed memos describing barbaric interrogation techniques used by CIA operatives on suspected terrorists...
22 April 2009
Big business parties attack our services: Whether a Labour or a Tory government is elected at the next general election, either will try to make extensive public spending cuts, writes Judy Beishon.
24 April 2009
Euro elections: Challenging big business and the far-right
In this year’s European elections working-class people have a positive alternative to vote for. A new electoral alliance, No2EU-Yes to Democracy, has been launched to oppose the EU’s big-business agenda. It will also mount a challenge to the divisive, anti-working class, far-right BNP which has, in the past, benefitted from the protest votes in Euro-elections. HANNAH SELL reports on this important initiative.
28 April 2009
STOP PRESS: Key union activist sacked (updated 29/4/09: 7pm)
Lobby of Unite London headquarters over the sacking of Rob Williams, Linamar convenor, photo Alison Hill
Socialist Party member Rob Williams, the Unite convenor of the Linamar car parts factory (formerly Visteon) in Swansea, was called into the directors' office of the plant on Tuesday 28 April and told that he was being sacked for "irretrievable breakdown of trust".
We understand that today's negotiations (29/4/09) between the union and Linamar management have ended. More negotiations have been scheduled for a week's time (Wednesday 6 May). In the meantime Rob remains in his job and as Convenor of the factory.
Determined action has forced Linamar to think again.
29 April 2009
Youth Fight for Jobs launch conference
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Youth Fight For Jobs demonstration, photo Paul Mattsson |
While bankers receive billions of pounds in bailouts, despite being responsible for triggering the economic collapse, hard-working people are faced with a diet of cuts in public services, tax hikes and lay-offs...
29 April 2009
Being a new teacher - a shock to the system
A quarter of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) leave teaching within three years of starting their first job, writes Jim Thomson.
29 April 2009
National Union of Teachers conference: Fighting "teaching-on-the-cheap"
For a few years now the composition of the leadership of the NUT has been changing. The main left groupings, the STA and CDFU work as one, and the previous right-wing controlling group has grown 'softer', writes Linda Taaffe
29 April 2009
Does the 'botch it' budget benefit young people?
Alistair Darling's budget, presented on the day that unemployment reached 2.1 million, was posed as a budget of 'job creation', writes Ben Robinson.
29 April 2009
Olympics: Defend jobs, pay and conditions
Olympics site demo 6 May: The London and South East construction branch of Unite have organised a protest at the Olympic construction site in east London on 6 May, writes Keith Gibson, Lindsey Oil Refinary site.
29 April 2009
Budget 2009 - debts passed to all of us
"Get ready for dirty hospitals and crumbling schools" warned a journalist following the government budget last week...
29 April 2009
European elections: Build support for a workers' alternative to Labour
As convenor of No2EU - Yes to Democracy, I recently visited the Visteon factory in Basildon currently being blockaded by the sacked workforce, writes Bob Crow, General Secretary, RMT
29 April 2009
STOP PRESS: Key union activist sacked
Socialist Party member Rob Williams, the Unite convenor of the Linamar car parts factory in Swansea, was called into the directors' office of the plant on Tuesday 28 April and told that he was being sacked for "irretrievable breakdown of trust"...
29 April 2009
On 25 April Basildon town centre was practically taken over by Visteon workers and supporters during a day of action to highlight their fight for justice, writes Eleanor Donne, Basildon Socialist Party.
29 April 2009
Many of the obituaries of Jack Jones in the capitalist press comment on his early life when he was fighting with the international brigade in the Spanish civil war against the fascists of Franco...
29 April 2009
Prisme workers win funding for jobs
After 51 days, we the workers at the Dundee Prisme factory have decided to end our occupation. The reason we have taken this decision is that it looks like we have secured funding to take our co-op venture...
29 April 2009
Little debate at Unison health conference
Any Unison members in the NHS who were hoping that this year's health conference would see the start of a fightback against job losses, cuts and privatisation will be hugely disappointed, writes Adrian O'Malley, Unison Health service group executive, personal capacity.
29 April 2009
Sacked workers protest in Newcastle
WORKERS AT Stead McAlpin, who were sacked and given just 15 minutes to leave the factory, brought their protest to Newcastle where they picketed John Lewis at its shop inside Eldon Square shopping centre, writes Elaine Brunskill.
29 April 2009
Civil service: Workers fight cuts and sell-offs
THE TREASURY'S final report of the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) aims to cut government spending by £15 billion, a Land Registry worker writes.
29 April 2009
Hands off Lewisham Bridge school!
PARENTS AND other community campaigners around the Defend Education in Lewisham campaign have been occupying the roof of Lewisham Bridge school in south London since 23 April, writes Chris Newby.
29 April 2009
Sri Lanka war: Rajapakse regime ignores Tamils' plight in renewed army offensive
THE SRI Lankan Army is pursuing a relentless and bloody battle for the last piece of ground held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north-east of the country, writes Elizabeth Clarke.
29 April 2009
THE SUNDAY Times 'Rich List', the annual survey that estimates the minimum wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people, is usually an exercise in licking the ruling class' boots, writes Roger Shrives.
29 April 2009
Workers' internationalism: A history of the first four socialist international organisations
Today, with world capitalism in its gravest crisis since the 1930s, there is a crying need for a mass political alternative of the working class. The task of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) is to help to create the conditions for the formation of such an international.
29 April 2009
While bankers receive billions of pounds in bailouts, despite being responsible for triggering the economic collapse, hard-working people are faced with a diet of cuts in public services, tax hikes and lay-offs, writes Paul Callanan, Greenwich Socialist Students.
19 Nov Socialism 2022
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