The Socialist 19 January 2022

Toxic Tories must go

Tories on the ropes

Want to fight austerity?

No trust in Tories to keep us safe

Tories hand cash to private health profiteers

Tory vaccine sacking threat set to deepen NHS staffing crisis

Employers use vaccine excuse to attack sick pay

News in brief

Murder of Ashling Murphy sends shocks waves across Ireland and beyond

Northern Ireland: Workers fight threatened closure of women's hostel

US: Independent Socialist Group launches new paper

Eyewitness account of workers' uprising in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Mutual aid, the welfare state and the fight for a new mass workers' party

Why are things the way they are?

Rob Windsor - remembering a tireless fighter for socialism

Theatre: Yes Yes UCS

Sheffield Just Eat couriers speak about strike

S Yorks Stagecoach strike results in "huge pay win"

Scunthorpe scaffs resume indefinite strike action

Coventry bin strike continues

Bus driver Tracey Scholes reinstated at Go North West

Royal Mail: Unofficial walkouts precede bigger battle to come on pay and workload

Newham college strike solid against bully privatisers

Somers Forge workers continue pay strike

Workplace news in brief

NUS walkout: Organise to fight for free education on 2 March

Demonstrating against the Tory anti-protest bill

Waltham Forest: Campaign unites families facing eviction

Newham council rejects using 0.03% of reserves to fund arts

Birmingham: Cuts consultations replaced by computer game

Southampton uni ignores staff and students in exam farce

Oliver Campbell - 31 years fighting for justice

Bournemouth - angry people not represented by capitalist parties

Pauline Wall memorial meeting

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Bus driver Tracey Scholes reinstated at Go North West

Unite member Tracey has been reinstated. Photo: Dave Beale (Click to enlarge)

Dave Beale, Lancashire Socialist Party

Bus driver Tracey Scholes has been reinstated at Go North West. The campaign won after supporters of Unite member Tracey were out in full force on 11 January to demand her reinstatement against the blind intransigence of management. Thousands also signed the petition calling for Tracey's reinstatement, and over a thousand people wrote to the CEO of parent company Go Ahead.

Tracey faced dismissal from her job after the bus company repositioned its wing mirrors resulting in five-foot tall Tracey being physically unable to operate some buses. Following an appeal, Tracey still faced dismissal from her job unless she accepted losing five hours in pay a week. She carried on fighting. Unite pledged to launch an unrelenting campaign to support Tracey in the event that Go Ahead refused to reinstate her.

Sharon Graham said: "Tracey Scholes was the first woman bus driver at the Manchester depot. Her appointment broke the mould for women in the bus industry. She has given 34 years of unblemished service."

Whether the attack on Tracey was a product of arrogant local management or a result of wider and deliberate management provocation, it sits in the context of an ongoing struggle between aggressive and anti-union bus employers and Unite's growing militancy and ability to win disputes in the bus sector, and more generally.

This comes at the same depot where there was 85 days of strike action last year.

Sharon Graham's leadership, and Unite's newly formed combine in the bus sector, open up new and substantial possibilities for winning cases like this, but also for pushing back the major employers in the sector as part of a coordinated national Unite strategy on pay, conditions and jobs. However, not until the reregulation and nationalisation of the bus sector is achieved will there be a service with a real guarantee to protect workers' rights and serve the community.

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Tories on the ropes