Archive for January 2015
2 January 2015
Coventry Socialist Party has posted a number of articles on its website about the Christmas-New Year scandal of thousands of lost jobs at City Link
5 January 2015
Barbour workers strike against worse conditions
Workers in Barbour's Gateshead warehouse have started their second strike
7 January 2015
'Election fever' - working class alternative needed
Come to the TUSC conference, 24 January: Yet again the Labour Party leadership has reaffirmed its commitment to Tory austerity
7 January 2015
The target driven use of punitive benefit sanctions on poor people by this government of millionaires is a national disgrace
7 January 2015
Bankers get bonuses... workers get the boot
City Link workers and fellow trade unionists protesting outside the bankrupt company's headquarters on New Year's Day 2015, photo Coventry SP
City Link redundancies: It was a happy new year for City banking bosses. With their bonuses, 121 members of Goldman Sachs were paid an average of £3 million each last year. It was not such a happy new year for everyone however
7 January 2015
London bus drivers to strike for single contract
London bus drivers in the Unite union are due to strike on 13 January in demand of a standard contract across the capital's bus network
7 January 2015
Save the jobs of City Link workers
Nuneaton RMT branch secretary and Socialist Party member Paul Reilly at the City Link protest, 01.01.15, photo Coventry SP
Renationalise mail distribution: Over 3,000 City Link workers are now facing the New Year dole queue with the company put into administration
7 January 2015
Socialist Party member John Reid has been elected as the London Transport member for the RMT union's council of executives
7 January 2015
I come from a strong Labour background. My uncle, Walter Harrison, was Labour MP for Wakefield. His obituaries said he would go to any lengths to delay the onslaught of a Thatcher government
7 January 2015
Fat cat City bankers were paid an average of £1.3 million last year, making their pay packages worth almost 50 times the average annual wage in the UK
7 January 2015
The battle for Sedgehill school
'Save Sedgefield' demo, 12 December 2014
No to Academies!: Parents, teachers and school students in Lewisham are angry. Labour-run Lewisham council in south London plans to dismiss the governors and headteacher at Sedgehill school and impose an 'interim executive
7 January 2015
Art & revolution: painting by Juan Pedro Flores Gonzales
Art is too often put out of ordinary people's reach by extortionate prices and a snobbish social elite. So why is big art such big business? And what does that mean for working class artists?
7 January 2015
Socialist Students campaigning reports
Socialist Students is a democratic campaigning organisation with groups in universities and colleges throughout the country
7 January 2015
Join the Socialists to fight for rent control
"Almost nobody in the UK is opposed to rent controls for housing" read the Independent headline
7 January 2015
Appeal to readers: cash needed to fight the cuts
The Socialist Party launched its general election appeal before Christmas. We are aiming to raise £50,000 over the next few weeks to help pay for the leaflets, posters and other essential material essential
7 January 2015
Stealing school fields? It's child's play
School playing fields are not "surplus land". So said close to 100 concerned parents and local residents at Parkland Primary School, Swansea, in December
7 January 2015
Scottish Labour leadership: more of the same
Jim Murphy's election as Labour's new Scottish leader has underlined the need for the affiliated trade unions to break from Labour
7 January 2015
Defending working class history
The People's History Museum in Manchester has launched a campaign to plug a £200,000 funding shortfall when it loses central government funding in April, writes Tony Mulhearn
7 January 2015
Greece: towards a Syriza government?
Xekinima (CWI Greece) are participating in the elections and other struggles
At the end of last year a constitutional crisis arose in austerity-ridden Greece with the failure to elect a president. An early general election to be called for 25 January with Syriza (a left party) leading the polls. The Socialist spoke to Andros Payiatsos from Xekinima (CWI in Greece)
7 January 2015
NHS crisis: Government cuts to blame - not patients
The ongoing crisis in the National Health Service (NHS) has become the latest general election battleground for the establishment parties - with Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Ukip all pledging to make it work
9 January 2015
A strange way to protect public services
Three of our four day centres for adults with learning disabilities are due to close
9 January 2015
Shift change exposes employer's 'family values'
Striking Barbour's Gateshead workers march
9 January 2015
London bus strikes 13 January - workers have had enough
The Socialist Party fully supports the strike by 27,000 bus workers across London on Tuesday 13 January
10 January 2015
Counter terrorist threat with workers-led mass unity
The shocking, cold blooded slaughter of journalists and others in the Paris office of satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, and more killings in subsequent days, has been met with mass outrage
12 January 2015
Save Moorways pool and sports centre
Derby TUSC supporters are fighting the closure of Moorways swimming pool and sports centre
13 January 2015
Bus drivers unite in historic strike action
Bus workers across London are striking for one rate for the job across all 18 companies
14 January 2015
Circle vulture flies out of Hinchingbrooke
Just three years into a ten year contract the private company Circle has pulled out of its contract to run Hinchingbrooke National Health Service (NHS) hospital in Cambridgeshire, writes Jackie Grunsell.
14 January 2015
Last Sunday, in Paris, Prime Minister David Cameron was happy to rub shoulders with fellow right-wing political leaders at the head of the millions strong march to defend 'democracy'
14 January 2015
France: counter terrorist threat with mass unity
The shocking terrorist attacks in Paris, mainly at the journal Charlie Hebdo and in a Jewish supermarket, were met with mass revulsion and outrage. These atrocities were directed at ordinary working people and do nothing to counter oppression
14 January 2015
Germany: what is behind Pegida?
In recent weeks Germany has seen growing demonstrations in favour and against Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West), writes Wolfram Klein, Socialist Alternative (SAV, CWI in Germany).
14 January 2015
Join the socialists to fight privatisation
They're everywhere! Money-grubbing, private claws - sinking talons into our public services and workers' pay and conditions, writes Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, Socialist Party national organiser.
14 January 2015
Rotherham town hall was flooded by angry pensioners demanding free travel on 5 January, writes Sharron Milsom, Sheffield North Socialist Party.
14 January 2015
Fat Cat Tuesday: Britain's fat cats are now so wealthy that according to the High Pay Centre their earnings overtake the average worker's salary in less than two days
14 January 2015
Charlie Hebdo: no to terrorism
Don't let us be divided! Fight against racism!: This statement was written (on 8 January) by Gauche Revolutionnaire (the sister organisation of the Socialist Party in France) in response to the attack on Charlie Hebdo
14 January 2015
Book review: Eleanor Marx - a life
Eleanor Marx was an extraordinary woman - youngest daughter of an extraordinary man, Karl Marx, and of Jenny, his lifelong partner through revolution and counter-revolution
14 January 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Pride (2014) at the cinema last year. The film dramatises the solidarity between LGBT and mining communities during the 1984-85 miners' strike
14 January 2015
Socialist Party Election Appeal 2015
The Socialist Party is appealing for £50,000 to help fund our candidates for the 2015 elections, as part of TUSC. Members explain why they are donating
14 January 2015
Wales FE strike: Further Education union members in Wales delivered a mandate for strike action over pay in ballots that closed on 5 January
14 January 2015
Russell Brand leads protesters on the New Era estate demo outside Westbrook offices in Mayfair, photo Paul Mattsson
How tenants and campaigners won against big landlords: Residents of the New Era estate in east London made headlines last year with their campaign against sell-offs and rent hikes
14 January 2015
Sedgehill School besieged by privateers
In Lewisham, we will be keeping up our fight to oppose academy plans that could threaten the break-up of local authority schooling right across the borough
14 January 2015
Sri Lankan elections: Butcher Rajapaksa defeated
In the presidential election held on 8 January in Sri Lanka the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, suffered a fatal blow. The opposition candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, won with 51.3% against Rajapaksa's 47.6%.
14 January 2015
Tesco: shop workers need fighting union leadership
Tesco's first trading statement of 2015 brought further profits warnings, news of cuts and further attacks on workers, writes Scott Jones, Candidate for Usdaw executive South Wales and Western division.
14 January 2015
The final quarter of fighting fund collection in 2014 surpassed all expectations. We raised a magnificent £34,745 - 138% of the national target - in the three months up to Christmas
14 January 2015
NHS in crisis: This emergency is no accident
Hands off our NHS! photo Paul Mattsson
The NHS is under increasing strain as the crisis in hospitals' Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments deepens. A&E waiting times have been the worst since records began. The number of trolley waits has more than trebled
14 January 2015
Billionaires five times richer than in 2004
Fight inequality with socialism: Eye-wateringly massive inequality. An ever-widening wealth gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. Scandalous tax-avoiding arrangements
14 January 2015
Help build an anti-cuts electoral alternative
Waltham Forest TUSC supporters campaigning for rent control
Come to the TUSC conference, 24 January: The 7 May general election will be seen by many as an opportunity to ditch the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition that has imposed the widest and deepest austerity for generations, writes Dave Nellist, TUSC national chair.
16 January 2015
Essex firefighters took strike action from 9am on Wednesday 14 January. The three days of planned partial actions have been escalated as the employers effectively chose to temporarily lock firefighters
17 January 2015
Activists discuss their union's elections
Unison activists met to discuss developments in their union and the upcoming NEC elections
19 January 2015
UCU: Clear strategy needed to reignite pensions action
On 14 January the UCU lecturers' union continued the suspension of the marking boycott to allow for a ballot of members on new proposals from the employers, which will run from 16 to 26 January
21 January 2015
Striking NHS workers say: 'Give us pay we can live on'
Angry NHS workers are due to take a further 12 hours strike action on 29 January and go out again for a full 24 hours in February
21 January 2015
Opposing establishment parties is not 'wasted vote'
On 24 January, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is meeting to discuss the 2015 elections. Clive Heemskerk, TUSC national election agent, puts the case for the biggest possible challenge in both the general election and local council contests on 7 May
21 January 2015
In a small store such as ours, managers often end up working side by side with ordinary staff, all doing the same job. It's called "rumble", and can be a fun activity, joking and chatting, writes a Tesco worker.
21 January 2015
Underpaid: Prime Minister David Cameron reckons he's getting tough with employers who pay below the statutory minimum wage of £6.50 an hour to their workers
21 January 2015
Election appeal: Help fund the fightback!
Don't just boo the main parties, dig deep to help fund the socialist alternative.
21 January 2015
Barbour workers accept improved offer
Striking Barbour workers have voted to go back to work
21 January 2015
Greece: Syriza victory would raise workers' hopes
On 19 January, 6 days before the Greek general election, the Socialist spoke to Andros Payiatsos from Xekinima (CWI in Greece)
21 January 2015
Take the wealth off the super-rich!
photo Paul Mattsson
80 billionaires own half the world: The charity Oxfam has produced a report showing that the richest 1% of people on this planet are on course to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016 - a testament to the inherent greed and inequality of the capitalist system
21 January 2015
Labour Party won't protect our NHS
A political alternative is needed: As waiting times at A&E's hit their highest levels since records began, Labour's lead over the Tories on the NHS has widened to 18 points
21 January 2015
Youth unemployment: anxiety and anger
A new report by the Prince's Trust shows the devastating impact of unemployment on young people in Britain
21 January 2015
Oil price crashes as world economy slows
World capitalism faces a gloomy future according to recent reports issued by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank
21 January 2015
Care home scandal: When profit comes first...
The privately run Parklands House care home in Rochdale was so bad that according to the Manchester Evening News: "Residents were seen sitting in soiled clothing, medication was left lying around and some patients were not receiving the right prescriptions."
21 January 2015
Cardiff happy to get the blues
Cardiff City fans are celebrating their club's return to blue. Billionaire owner Vincent Tan, who changed the strip to red in June 2012, was forced to back down by a mass campaign of supporters
21 January 2015
Hackney women give TUSC their blessing
"Before I heard about TUSC, I was thinking I wouldn't vote in the elections. Now I have a reason to." That was the reaction of one attendee at a Christian women's community meeting in Hackney.
21 January 2015
5,000 residents force council debate on pool closure
Derby TUSC is fighting Derby council's closure of Moorways sports complex, including two swimming pools
21 January 2015
Halt the cutbacks in hearing aid provision
In Devon, NHS patients who suffer from deafness have been told that they can in future only have one hearing aid
21 January 2015
50,000 people marched in Berlin in opposition to the proposed TTIP treaty and new farming technologies
21 January 2015
Privatisation worsens NHS crisis
The growing crisis in Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments is the result of government policies, as well described in the Socialist
21 January 2015
Why I joined the Socialist Party
I moved to London from San Francisco in October 2014. I had been a member of an unrelated socialist group in the US
21 January 2015
Safeguarding PCS against vicious Tory attacks
As the Tories threaten to increase Britain's draconian anti-trade union laws beyond the general election, thousands of trade union reps across the trade union movement are even now facing huge cuts in their facility time
22 January 2015
Carlisle Labour candidate should refuse money from Lib Dem lord
A letter sent by Brent Kennedy from Carlisle TUSC to the local press, radio and TV in Carlisle following revelations of ex-Lib Dem peer Oakshott offering funding to 30 Labour Party parliamentary election candidates, including Carlisle Labour candidate Lee Sherriff
23 January 2015
23 January 2015
26 January 2015
Socialists joining celebrations at Greek embassy
The Socialist Party welcomes the massive vote for anti-austerity Syriza in Greece
26 January 2015
TUSC: Gearing up for its largest anti-cuts election challenge yet
2015 TUSC conference, photo J Beishon
"Fantastic day, fantastic conference, fantastic people" tweeted Red Labour Hull councillor Dean Kirk on his way home from addressing the conference of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
27 January 2015
Councillor ends long-term suspension from Labour
Cllr Kevin Bennett has reached the end of the road in the Labour Party
27 January 2015
The Syriza victory can unleash a new period of the working class fighting back against austerity. Come to a meeting to discuss what this will mean in Greece and across Europe.
27 January 2015
Syriza comes to power, as old ruling parties collapse
Left parties fail to form government - Syriza goes into coalition with populist right Independent Greeks
An interview with Andros Payiatsos, from Xekinima (CWI in Greece)
28 January 2015
A basic human need. Yet in London tonight, over 6,000 will sleep rough
28 January 2015
Davos summit: 'The pitchforks are coming!'
The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos, Switzerland, last week. A global elite of world leaders, intellectuals, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and representatives of big business gathered
28 January 2015
Dangerous driving: Comedian Al Murray's reactionary alter ego character - the pub landlord - must be wondering just how ludicrous his general election manifesto must become to out-trump Ukip
28 January 2015
Government welfare cuts: No to sanctions!
Millions in the UK are suffering the effects of unemployment. For many it's a daily struggle with a complicated bureaucracy, the effects of poverty and the countless rejections from job applications
28 January 2015
Usdaw elections: 'We need a winning, fighting union'
Socialist Party member Amy Murphy is standing for president in the Usdaw shop workers' union elections, as well as for re-election as a Southern division executive council member
28 January 2015
Transport union RMT has called off 48-hours of strike action on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), due to start on 28 January, after the employers agreed to all the union's demands
28 January 2015
NHS strike suspended: As we go to press, the NHS strike due to take place on 29 February over pay has been suspended following an offer from the employer
28 January 2015
The Socialist Party is appealing for £50,000 to help fund our candidates for the 2015 elections, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
28 January 2015
'Defenders of democracy' mourn despot's death
On 11 January Barack Obama and David Cameron, together with 40 other world leaders, marched arm-in-arm through Paris after the Charlie Hebdo events proclaiming the values of free speech and other democratic rights, writes Simon Carter.
28 January 2015
Book review: Unison bureaucracy unmasked
Defend the Four: protest against Unison witchhunt, 2009, photo Suzanne Beishon
I recently read Unison Bureaucracy Unmasked: The Defend the Four Story, a restrained account of a shameful episode in the history of Unison, writes Maurice Sheehan, Ex-staff member, Unison.
28 January 2015
Tories and Labour refuse moratorium on fracking
This government cares more about profits for energy companies than it does about what happens to people
28 January 2015
Quantitative Easing: Socialism for the rich!
If you're in a hole, stop digging. But not it seems if you happen to be the European Central Bank (ECB) dealing with the depressed Eurozone economies
28 January 2015
Extra, extra! Socialist needs new sales!
No one can beat the Socialist on analysis and ideas. No one can even come close to the clarity and audacity of the programme we propose. All we need to do is get it out there. We need to sell it
28 January 2015
Lib-Lab political bung scandal
Labour parliamentary candidate Lee Sherriff has taken a £10,000 political 'donation' for her election campaign from millionaire property dealer Lord Oakeshott
28 January 2015
Leicester marches for free education
People across Leicester will march for free education 31 January
28 January 2015
Burns' Night a blazing success
The annual "Alternative Burns' Night Supper" organised by the Carlisle Socialist Party was described by a journalist from the local paper as his best ever night out in the city
28 January 2015
Why I joined the Socialist Party
I grew up during the Cold War, and my politics didn't stretch much further than no nukes and vote Labour
28 January 2015
Tory party chair Grant Shapps claimed recently that Britain's council housing waiting list had fallen
28 January 2015
Inept waste site renationalised
Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site is a poorly managed deposit for tens of thousands of tonnes of dangerous nuclear waste
28 January 2015
Despite efforts by Stormont politicians and many in the Northern Ireland media to vilify them, striking NI Water workers have won significant concessions from management
28 January 2015
Strike called off in face of inadequate pay offer
The Unison Health Service Group Executive (SGE) voted to suspend NHS England strike action scheduled for 29 January
28 January 2015
Is the Green Party the answer?
Widespread electoral disillusionment with the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem establishment parties has opened up a political vacuum. Claire Laker-Mansfield questions whether the Green Party provides the answer to the lack of working class political representation.
28 January 2015
Syriza victory shows austerity elite can be beaten
Greek workers marching in Thessaloniki, photo Ged Travers
That's the message ringing out from Greece in the aftermath of the country's parliamentary elections on 25 January
30 January 2015
30 January 2015
Fracking in trouble, from Lancashire to Lanarkshire!
'Hydraulic fracturing' is widely opposed because it is seen as deeply unsafe
08/06/20 A socialist charter for young people13/05/20 Listen and watch: Podcasts & Videos12/05/20 Usdaw: The Activist no.89
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