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As we approach the festive season, now is the time to order your Xmas reading material. Don’t be stuck having to watch ‘The Sound Of Music’ or ‘The Great Escape’  yet again when you can be arming yourself with the ideas of socialism! We have lots of new (and not so new) items in stock….

Striking refuse workers in Leeds have voted to return to work after nearly three
months on the picket line. The all-out industrial action, which ran from
September 7^th to November 25^th, was in response to savage
pay-cuts that would have slashed individual wages by thousands of pounds per
year. Workers attending a mass meeting at the suitably flamboyant Jongleurs Comedy Club voted by nearly
four to one to return to work, endorsing a deal which benefitted many workers
but raised concerns for some.

2009 has been a momentous year for
Socialist Appeal. The move from a magazine to a full colour tabloid format was
without a doubt the biggest step we have taken since we started publishing in
1992. Through the years we have made a number of advances but this was the one
which carried the most risks since it was dependant on us firstly raising the
funds to go ahead and then increasing the sales to make it worthwhile and cost
effective. The prize was being able to reach more people with a higher quality
paper that still had the highest quality content within it. But we need your support…

Ireland: Thousands of Nurses, teachers, civil servants, local
government workers and other hard pressed public sector workers will no doubt
shed a tear today after hearing how disappointed Mr Cowen is that they are
going to be on strike. For sure the Taoiseach wasn’t just disappointed
according to RTÉ he was indeed “deeply disappointed.”

Ireland might be out of the World Cup, but
the Irish working class is at the forefront of the struggle against the
bosses crisis. It’ll take much more than a dodgy hand ball to take the
heat out of this situation. Earlier today yet another major union voted
massively to join the public sector strikes on November 24^th. SIPTU’s 70,000 members voted by 85% in favour of participating in what is becoming more or less a de facto Public Sector General Strike.

Ireland: 65,000
teachers in the primary and secondary education, further education and
third level institutions have voted to back the strike action on 24^th
November. The action covering both academic and non academic staff
means that effectively the entire education sector will be shut down
for the day. The four unions involved INTO, TUI, ASTI and  IFUT which organises two thirds of university teachers have all returned huge votes in favour of strike action.

This year’s LRC conference took place on Saturday 14^th
November in central London.
The LRC is currently the biggest left formation in the Labour Party with over
1000 members and with affiliations from 6 national trade unions. Although it is
probably the most significant left group in the party for some 15 or more
years, it is  best viewed as an
anticipation of what is to come. Some 240 people attended this year’s
conference with about half being delegates from affiliated organisations. The
composition of the conference was in the main drawn from older lefts in the
unions and the Labour Party, but there was also a smattering of young people.

Students at the London College of
Communication occupied the main lecture hall as part of a campaign to
oppose planned cutbacks.The action started on Monday night and
continued untill Wednesday afternoon. The decision to occupy was taken after a meeting on 9^th
of November where management refused to compromise on a “restructuring” plan
that will involve course closers and staff redundancies, which have already amounted to over 150.

In the aftermath of the decision by the CWU leadership to call off the latest round of national action last week, there are allready signs that the deal agreed may be unravelling. We reproduce here a statement issued by Socialist Appeal supporters in the CWU on the way forward.

Ireland: Wednesday’s demonstration of the 24/7 Frontline Alliance was a lot smaller than the
big rain soaked demonstrations on Friday, but no less important in some
ways. It’s seldom a good idea to take on all of your enemies at the
same time. It’s a sign of the times when the Gards, their Sergeants,
and the Prison Officers start agitating. But this is a crisis of the
bosses making, there are savage cuts in payments and huge pressures on
the rank and file Gardai. The crisis is eroding the support for the
entire system.

Tens of thousands of people: public
sector and private sector workers and their families, unemployed
workers, pensioners and students thronged the streets of eight cities
in the South on Friday, November 6; while 10 further demonstrations
took place in the north also. 70,000 marched into Merrion Square in
Dublin, 20,000 in Cork, 10,000 in Waterford, 6,000 in Galway, 5,000 in
Sligo, 5,000 in Limerick, 4,000 in Tullamore and 1,500 in Dundalk. Not
bad for a Friday with a grim weather forecast.

Over the last few months we have posted reports on strike actions involving bus workers in Northumberland, Doncaster, Manchester and Essex. Now action has arrived in the capital city itself. Bus workers in East London are out today in a dispute over wages and conditions – and the red flags are flying in Romford!