Archive for March 2015
2 March 2015
For the third Monday in succession, there has been a protest outside a Crossrail site
3 March 2015
London Socialist Party marks International Women's Day
Open meetings being held by some of the branches of the Socialist Party in London around the date of International Women's Day
3 March 2015
3 March 2015
The Green Party has no answers
Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, has had a difficult time lately
4 March 2015
Housing crisis: Build Homes - Cap Rents
We all need a roof over our heads. However, even this basic human requirement is harder and harder to come by. We see extensive council house sell-offs, predatory private landlords, welfare cuts - and meagre government housing quotas not being met
4 March 2015
TUSC is standing in over 100 parliamentary seats and up to 1,000 council seats in May 2015
4 March 2015
Peter and Kay Harris were among six supporters of Militant (forerunner of the Socialist) who were witch-hunted out of Blackburn Labour Party at the behest of local MP Jack Straw back in the early 1980s
4 March 2015
Late for supper: Almost 100,000 children in poor families went hungry last year because of government cuts or sanctions imposed on their parents' benefits
4 March 2015
Newcastle united against far-right bigots
Socialist Party members and TUSC supporters on the Newcastle counter-demo against far-right group Pegida, photo Elaine Brunskill
The UK franchise of far-right German anti-Muslim group Pegida organised a demonstration in Newcastle on 28 February
4 March 2015
May Day greetings in the Socialist
The Socialist reports the victories that show that if you fight back you can win - from housing workers' disputes in Britain, to cleaners in Greece
4 March 2015
Build the left in CWU elections
Communication Workers Union (CWU) members will shortly be electing a new general secretary as well as national and sector executives
4 March 2015
Campaign victory saves ten children's centres
Liverpool TUSC congratulates Save Our Sure Start Children's Centres for rescuing ten from closure. Their magnificent victory demonstrates clearly that an effective campaign can produce results
4 March 2015
Northern conference: It is clear the Socialist Party Northern region is taking important steps forward in party building
4 March 2015
50,000 march in Moscow after shooting of Nemtsov
The planned 'anti-crisis' march organised by Russia's liberal opposition in Moscow was turned into a political protest against terror after one of the organisers, Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Russian Republican Party, was gunned down as he was walking past the Kremlin
4 March 2015
Forbes list gives the lie to austerity - join the Socialists!
The Forbes rich list proves there's no austerity for the super-rich, writes Sarah-Sachs Eldridge, Socialist Party national organiser.
4 March 2015
More unions join Lewisham anti-academies strike
On 5 March, members of Lewisham National Union of Teachers in four schools will be on strike again, this time with the welcome addition of NASUWT and GMB union members in the schools
4 March 2015
Women and new unionism: lessons for today
Women workers have been at the forefront of the fight against austerity, photo Paul Mattsson
As women and men around the world celebrate International Women's Day on 8 March, women workers are bearing the brunt of austerity
4 March 2015
Socialist change to remedy climate change
Nationalise the giant corporations to fund millions of 'green' jobs: This week's 'It's time to act' march will see many thousands on the streets of London calling for meaningful action to combat devastating climate change
4 March 2015
TUSC councillors table 'no-cuts' budgets
Councillors in Leicester and Hull put forward anti-austerity budgets
4 March 2015
Donate to fight the 'grand coalition'
Election appeal 2015: "Good luck to all TUSC candidates, on to a better future" said Marcus Edwards from Llanelli, posting £50
4 March 2015
Brighton council stuck in budget stalemate
Green-led Brighton council's budget meeting on 26 February ended in a stalemate after five hours
5 March 2015
Lewisham anti-academy campaign: students say no!
To step up the campaign against academies in Lewisham, students held a lunchtime protest at Prendagast school, Hilly Fields
6 March 2015
GMB "Crocodile Tears" protests In Bristol, Plymouth, Epsom, Cambridge, Derby and Bridgend to shame managers who blacklisted workers
9 March 2015
Tories admit inequality - Only TUSC challenges it
Today the prime minister will admit that for families, growing inequality brings insecurity. TUSC lays the blame at the Tories' feet
9 March 2015
'Power to the women' was the slogan of a lively, loud march through central London
11 March 2015
Three TUSC prospective parliamentary candidates say why they're standing
11 March 2015
Oppose tax office's 'company union'
A new 'company union' - the Revenue and Customs Trade Union (RCTU) - has been launched in HMRC, months after leaked documents showed such a move was planned as part of attacks on the socialist-led PCS civil service union
11 March 2015
Dan Celardi's article (Socialist 845) showed the dangers of the Metropolitan Police's decision not to police many demonstrations in London, leaving it to campaigners to employ private companies to formulate their traffic management plans and steward road closures, writes Paula Mitchell.
11 March 2015
Southampton care homes protest: Residents' carers, workers and supporters gathered in Shirley precinct in Southampton on 7 March to rally support for Woodside Lodge and other day services and care homes under threat from the Labour council
11 March 2015
Leicester: £3 an hour wage slavery scandal
2,500 garment workers in Leicester, half the total in the city, are paid £3 an hour or less. This horrifying statistic, highlighted in a recent report, exposes sweat shop bosses who flout minimum wage
11 March 2015
Spied on by the state and bosses
One of the key industrial battles of the last five years has been the struggle of workers in the construction industry for trade union rights and better terms and conditions, writes Neil Cafferky.
11 March 2015
Misery heaped on misery: The Tory/Lib Dem coalition has imposed massive council spending cuts with Labour-run authorities in the poorest boroughs dutifully wielding the axe
11 March 2015
Reclaim the day: International Women's Day (IWD) took place on 8 March. Socialist Party members and TUSC supporters took part in the global action around the day, bringing socialist ideas to the fight against the oppression
11 March 2015
Super-rich get richer... MPs to get huge pay rise: While working class people struggle to make ends meet, the wealthy continue to get increasingly rich. The combined wealth of the world's 1,826 billionaires has reached $7.05 trillion
11 March 2015
Women in the frontline of fighting austerity cuts
The United Nations says it will take 70 years to close the wage gap between women and men. However, a UK government spokesperson used International Women's Day to claim the gender pay gap in Britain was "at its lowest ever"
11 March 2015
Northern Ireland public sector general strike
A Northern Ireland public sector general strike, organised by Nipsa and other trade unions, is taking place on 13 March in opposition to austerity
11 March 2015
Camden caterers demand Living Wage
Camden caterers demand the Living Wage, March 2015, photo by Reel News
The Labour-led Camden council decided on 2 March not to implement the Camden school caterers' claim for the London Living Wage
11 March 2015
NHS workers reluctantly accept 1% pay rise
Unison health members in NHS England have returned a two-to-one acceptance of a 1% pay rise for 2015-16 on a low ballot turnout
11 March 2015
Dundee hospital strike after 96% 'yes' vote
Porters at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee have begun a campaign of industrial action to win back a massive underpayment going back over a decade
11 March 2015
Get ready for a revamp of the Socialist!
Fortnight of action on sales and fighting fund: In the next few weeks, the Socialist is moving to a new format with an exciting new design. To celebrate, we're organising a fortnight of action
11 March 2015
Socialist Students leads in Leeds
Socialist Students members organised a march for free education of around 150 in Leeds on 6 March. Students and young workers were attracted from across Yorkshire
11 March 2015
Socialist Party general election appeal 2015
As the main parties squabble over election debates, Socialist Party members and TUSC supporters are building a real alternative to their sterile arguments over what to cut and in what order
11 March 2015
How can Russell Brand's call for revolution be achieved?
Everywhere you go, if there is struggle against austerity you'll probably find people talking about Russell Brand. His book Revolution describes itself as "the beginning of a conversation that will change the world"
11 March 2015
"It wasn't easy, but I wanted to beat Thatcher"
Former striking miners retrace their steps, 30 years to the day since they marched back to Shireoaks colliery, near Worksop. Former Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Notts miners and supporters marked the anniversary., photo J Dale
30 years since the end of the miners' strike: Neal Davis, member of Mansfield Socialist Party, spoke to former Shirebrook (north Derbyshire) miner Ronnie Rodgers
11 March 2015
Actor and activist Michael Sheen returned to his home town Newport in South Wales for a recent TV programme, 'Valleys Rebellion', commemorating the 175th anniversary of the 'Newport Rising'.
11 March 2015
Economy: Reality doesn't match Tory rhetoric
Austerity works - unemployment is falling and wages are rising: that is the pre-election mantra of the Tory Party. Of course, if it were true, millions of workers would be breathing a sigh of relief
11 March 2015
No such thing as a 'free' school: Cameron's election campaign promises that the Tories will open hundreds of new 'free schools' in England. But when did the Tories ever give away anything free, except to their friends in big business?
13 March 2015
Northern Ireland public sector strike against austerity
Tens of thousands of workers have today united in a one-day public sector strike across Northern Ireland
13 March 2015
Revealed: Tesco's plotting against Doncaster drivers
An email trail of memos reveals cold-hearted calculations to force through a cost-cutting project
15 March 2015
In recent years, UKIP has emerged as a threat to a number of Tory but also Labour seats. Its Tory-oriented anti-immigration, anti-EU rhetoric has been adapted to a right-wing populism aimed at winning voters fed up with the political establishment.
16 March 2015
Tories' pension swaps nothing but smoke and mirrors
In this week's budget, chancellor Osborne is set to allow existing pensioners to cash in their pensions
17 March 2015
Socialist Party Scotland leaves 'Solidarity'
Socialist Party Scotland has left Solidarity, a party it co-founded in 2006, following long-running political differences with party leader Tommy Sheridan
17 March 2015
Brazil - solidarity protests needed
Faced with lack of water for people, Sabesp cuts costs, sacks more than 500 workers and victimises trade union activists
18 March 2015
Whipps Cross hospital suffered cuts
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate for Walthamstow, Nancy Taaffe, responded to the announcements in the press on Whipps Cross going into 'special measures'
18 March 2015
Tory Prime Minister David Cameron is a big fan of the allegedly violent and notoriously bigoted presenter of BBC's Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson
18 March 2015
Callous tax: Low paid worker Carol Hall, whose disabled son died after being attacked by thugs, now faces being evicted from her family home because of the government's hated 'bedroom tax'
18 March 2015
A parting of the ways with Solidarity
Scotland and the fight for socialism: Extracts of a statement from Socialist Party Scotland executive committee
18 March 2015
Socialist Party fortnight of action 21 March - 4 April
A guide to fundraising and sales of the Socialist: Selling the Socialist and raising Fighting Fund is always at the forefront of our party branch activities, writes Val O'Flynn, Socialist Party Grimsby.
18 March 2015
'I can be a voice for youth and the Somali community'
Why I'm standing for TUSC: Tessa Warrington from Leicester Socialist Party interviews Mohamed Ahmed, 21, who is standing for TUSC in Wycliffe Ward in Leicester, writes Why have you decided to stand for TUSC?.
18 March 2015
Manchester: Labour cuts hit rough sleepers
Manchester city centre is now second only to London for its number of rough sleepers. When a report came out with this damning statistic, Manchester's Labour council announced even more cuts targeted
18 March 2015
Essex: nine day fire control strike
Fire control operators in Essex were on strike on 7-16 March in protest against the imposition of a 12-hour shift pattern in January, writes Dave Murray.
18 March 2015
Midlands NSSN: Building the rank and file fightback
"It ain't getting any easier for the working class," said Kev Greenway in closing the 2015 National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) Midlands conference, writes Dave Gorton, Unite LE/372 branch (personal capacity).
18 March 2015
Bus drivers ballot against pay robbery
Abellio London bus workers were told their 2015 pay award - 2% plus other benefits - due in January had been "suspended"
18 March 2015
Assem Allam, multi-millionaire owner of Hull City AFC, has issued eviction notices to community sporting organisations which use City's facilities, writes Eric Kelly and Phil Culshaw.
18 March 2015
Fight gender, caste and class oppression!
Review: India's daughter: Isai Priya, a Tamil activist and Socialist Party member, reviews BBC documentary India's Daughter
18 March 2015
Build the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition: The general election is taking place in less than eight weeks' time, yet half of voters do not yet know who they are going to vote for, writes Hannah Sell, Socialist Party deputy general secretary.
18 March 2015
The 1% 'walk tall' while the 99% are bowed by austerity
Hoping to gain extra votes, the chancellor has tried to sell his budget as a little relief from endless austerity, says TUSC Chair Dave Nellist
18 March 2015
We need a fighting, democratic union
Unison recall conference: For only the second time in its history, the Unison union has convened a special delegate recall conference
18 March 2015
Ukip: a party of the bosses, for the bosses
Channel 4 TV recently raised the prospect of a general election victory for Ukip in its 'mockumentary' - Ukip: The First 100 Days. An unlikely outcome this May, however, Ukip could win up to 16 MPs as the support for the traditional parties begins to crumble
18 March 2015
School students inspired by struggle
Helen Pattison interviews Luke, a sixth former fighting privately run 'academies' in Lewisham, south London, and reports from an angry school hustings in Enfield, north London
18 March 2015
How can civil liberties be protected?
Paul Heron reviews 'On Liberty' by Shami Chakrabati
18 March 2015
NHS bullying: Worcestershire campaign Betrayed By Their Trust (BBTT) aims to make NHS managers accountable for abusive behaviour which is wrecking the lives and careers of workers
18 March 2015
Socialist Party general election appeal 2015
"I have recently retired and am donating a part of my pension lump sum. I can't think of a better cause to donate to, and wish all socialist candidates as much success as possible in the forthcoming elections."
18 March 2015
Northern Ireland: Workers strike back
Friday 13 March saw tens of thousands of workers in education, health, civil services and, importantly, public transport, take part in coordinated strike action against a Stormont austerity agenda, writes Kevin Henry.
18 March 2015
Socialist elected to Unite executive council
Socialist Party member Suzanne Muna, secretary of the Housing Workers branch, and a United Left candidate, has been elected unopposed to represent the London and Eastern region on Unite's executive council
18 March 2015
Councillors do have a choice over cuts
Just weeks from the elections, council budget cuts are hammering communities and workers
18 March 2015
Osborne's 20p insult to low paid: A 20p an hour pay rise - so much then for the government's "giveaway" pre-election budget! What an insult to the lowest paid - a paltry rise in the minimum wage from £6.50 to £6.70 an hour, by next October.
20 March 2015
Anti-Blacklisting activist arrested on Crossrail protest
Blacklist Support Group secretary Dave Smith was arrested on a peaceful protest of 40 construction workers and their supporters outside the Construction News Awards in the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane on Wednesday night
20 March 2015
Whipps Cross and Barts NHS crisis: Cancel all PFI!
Under successive governments PFI contracts throughout the UK totalled £68 billion
23 March 2015
Dudley no-cuts candidate calls for Tory to resign
The Tory candidate has been accused of disgracefully inflaming issues around race
25 March 2015
Fighting against the cuts for the most vulnerable
Noreen Bailey is one of the leaders of the campaign against a criminal cut imposed by Salford's Labour Council
25 March 2015
Attempt to exclude TUSC from Leicester hustings
Leicester University is hosting an upcoming hustings with Labour, Tories, Greens, Ukip and the Lib Dems all represented
25 March 2015
TV review: Suffragettes Forever!
Katrine Williams of Cardiff Socialist Party reviews BBC TV's 'Suffragettes Forever! The Story of Women and Power'
25 March 2015
Fighting racism, austerity and capitalism
TUSC prospective candidates on the national march against racism, photo Paul Mattsson
Black and Asian people are at the sharp end of austerity. There has been a 50% increase in long-term unemployment for young black people since 2010
25 March 2015
Saving libraries: it's a page-turner!
Bristol backs books: Bristol City Council has been slammed for low school results in reading. So what does it do? It plans to close seven branch libraries, writes Sheila Caffrey.
25 March 2015
Government's pre-election budget: "The sun is starting to shine" crowed posh boy Tory Chancellor George Osborne in last week's Budget
25 March 2015
Tory candidate attempted to divide community
The Tory parliamentary candidate for the marginal Dudley North constituency, Afzal Amin, has been forced to quit after he was secretly filmed collaborating with the far-right racist English Defence League (EDL)
25 March 2015
Profits from illness: A Unite union report has revealed that many of the big private healthcare companies aiming to get lucrative contracts from the NHS budget operate through offshore tax havens
25 March 2015
Ireland: Mass protest against austerity charges
Dublin came to a halt on 20 March when 80,000 people marched against the government's imposed water charges
25 March 2015
On 17 March it was announced that Barts Health NHS trust, the largest in the country, was being put into special measures after a report found "a culture of bullying and low-morale at Whipps Cross"
25 March 2015
Lewisham: Marching against academies
Amid loud chants of "No ifs! No buts! Academy status sucks!" and "Parents, teachers, students say: Academies in Lewisham? No way!" around 300 protesters demonstrated through Lewisham in South London
25 March 2015
Inspired by Bob Crow to stand for TUSC
Joseph Mambuliya is chair of the RMT London Underground cleaners grade committee, and is standing for TUSC in Barking
25 March 2015
Socialist Party election appeal 2015
"Good luck to you all" from Teresa Mackay, with a donation of £75, brings us almost up to £40,000 paid in
25 March 2015
Anti-blacklisting leader arrested at Hilton protest
Blacklist Support Group secretary Dave Smith was arrested at Hilton protest
Blacklist Support Group secretary Dave Smith was arrested on the peaceful protest of 40 construction workers and their supporters outside the Construction News Awards in the Hilton Hotel in central London's Park Lane
25 March 2015
Unite conference hears how zero-hours were beaten
Unite Women's Conference heard about the potential power of women in the workplace when Socialist Party member Sara Kasab moved the motion on zero-hour contracts
25 March 2015
2015 elections: Reject the austerity lies
Join the socialist fightback! The Socialist Party's central message in the 2015 elections is this: austerity is not necessary and there is an alternative - a socialist alternative
25 March 2015
Special conference votes for submission of new pay claim
The Unison local government special conference delivered a blow to the leadership
25 March 2015
Read the Socialist - Join the Socialist Party: When people are losing their homes because of the bedroom tax, when 93,000 children are homeless, when parents in this country have gone without food so their children could have something to eat, when cuts and privatisation in the NHS threaten people's lives..
25 March 2015
How we defeated Thatcher's poll tax
25 years since the poll tax battle: The battle against the so-called 'poll tax' was one of the biggest movements of working people against a modern British government. Millions refused to pay; many millions more simply could not afford to pay
25 March 2015
Israel-Palestine: Likud election victory
New coalition will face chain of unresolved crises and bitter struggles
17 Jul Liverpool Socialist Party: The state machine, a Marxist anaylsis
17 Jul Birmingham South East Socialist Party: Europe in Crisis
17 Jul Cardiff West Socialist Party: Tories in Crisis - Force a General Election!
18 Jul Cardiff Central Socialist Party: Why capitalism cannot be reformed into something 'nicer'
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