Trade unionists have rightly reacted with anger at Tory proposals to amend the new Lobbying Bill to include fresh attacks on union funding for the Labour Party and to try and further limit the right to strike. The trade union and Labour leaders must fight against these attacks.
GMB delegates met this week in Plymouth for its annual conference. A motion in favour of a general strike – moved by Socialist Appeal supporter Ben Kirkham – was passed unaimously.
Over 50 people turned up in Grimsby town centre on Saturday 25th May, as yet more protests across the country are seen against the bedroom tax. In places like Grimsby where there are high levels of unemployment and poverty, the bedroom tax will hit the local area hard. The cost to the local economy, as a result of just this one cruel change in the benefits system, will run into the millions.
Delegates to the annual conference of PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union), the union of the civil servants, met this year in Brighton from the 21st to 23rd of May. At the conference delegates reaffirmed support for the Union’s campaign in opposition to job cuts and attacks on pay, pensions and other terms and conditions of employment. The conference agreed to call for a one-day strike of members by the end of June, probably on the same day as the teaching unions propose to take action.
Thousands of Londoners marched on Saturday 18th May to ‘Defend London’s NHS’ in a protest organised by an “unprecedented coalition of London residents, medical staff, trade unions and health campaigners”. Socialist Appeal supporters on the demonstration report on the latest mass protest against the Tory attacks on healthcare.
Civil Servants are facing some of the most vicious attacks on themselves and their unions in a generation. In the run up to the annual PCS national conference, which begins on Monday 20th May in Brighton, London PCS member Julian Sharpe outlines the issues facing the public sector union and its membership.
On May 4th around 250 workers and youth marched through Hull city centre as part of Hull TUC’s May Day celebrations. The march doubled as a protest against the austerity of the coalition government, and was led by the Labour councillors in Hull who are defying the cuts and providing an inspiration to the entire labour movement. Callum Stanland reports.
Saturday 4th May saw thousands march in the annual Glasgow May Day demonstration. A proud tradition in the home of ‘Red Clydeside’, the demonstration brings activists together in celebration of International Workers’ Day. Rachel Gibbs and Michael Allan of the Glasgow Marxists report on the recent Glasgow May Day 2013 celebrations.
Thousands of protesters participated in May Day (International Workers’ Day) in London yesterday. The banners and slogans raised were extremely militant, calling for the end of austerity throughout Europe by overthrowing capitalism. It is time for the leaders of the labour movement to reflect this militancy in their actions.
On a warm Saturday lunchtime on 20th April, around 1000 people marched through Leeds City Centre to protest against the coalition government’s hated Bedroom Tax. Residents were not only showing their anger at the national government for their particularly cruel and inhumane welfare “reform” but also calling on their Labour run council to take a stand against the government. Callum Stanland from the Grimsby Unite Community group reports on the latest protest against the welfare attacks.
Momentum is building on the second day of strike action in the Home Office. Members in different areas of the Home Office are taking part in four days of strike action this week. As part of a rolling programme of action across the civil service, and in pursuit of national demands, PCS are escalating action to a week of strikes across the Home Office, involving different areas taking action on consecutive days. PCS Socialist Appeal supporters report on the ongoing action.
At the same time as Margaret Thatcher was being buried to the pomp of the British establishment, to the tune of £10 million of our money, thousands of working people in Goldthorpe, a small ex-mining village on the outskirts of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, were celebrating the passing of this hated symbol of all that is bad about the Tories and the capitalist system it represents.