Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/574/7153
From The Socialist newspaper, 8 April 2009
No cuts to further education in Wales!
On 1 April, around five hundred students, lecturers and other further education (FE) college staff from across Wales protested and lobbied Welsh Assembly members over threatened redundancies and cuts to funding, pay and conditions.
Alec Thraves
The forecourt of the Welsh Assembly was packed, to listen to trade union reps and Assembly members supporting the demonstration. Assembly members from every political party, including the Tories and the ruling coalition of Plaid and Labour all expressed disgust at the Assembly's several million pound shortfall for FEs in Wales. It begs the question: if everyone is against it then who is voting for these vicious cutbacks? FFORWM, the employers' organisation for FE in Wales estimates 500 jobs could go.
Ronnie Job, Socialist Party Wales member and Unison rep at Gorseinon College was the main Unison speaker and received by far the biggest cheers for his demands for the end of incorporation - the colleges to be returned wholly to the public sector and a united militant fightback as the only way to reverse the cuts, and strike action against any compulsory redundancies!
These protests have put huge pressure on the Assembly government which must be followed through by industrial action if any Welsh college makes compulsory redundancies or tries to alter terms and conditions of staff.
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In The Socialist 8 April 2009:
Visteon car workers fight for their rights
Reports from Visteon plants in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon
National Union of Teachers Conference: Call national action on workload
Youth fight for jobs
Youth march for jobs: This is only the beginning!
Socialist Party editorial
No solution at London G20 summit
G20 Summit protests: Democratic rights trampled on
Socialist Party feature
The battle to defeat the Poll Tax
Socialist Party campaigns
EU presses for cuts in public spending
International socialist news
Stop the slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka
Arundhati Roy indicts the Sri Lankan Rajapakse regime
Egyptian regime: 'Scared that independent unions will succeed; scared a revolution will happen'
Solidarity with Kazakhstan oil workers
Socialist Party workplace news
Stockport cab drivers fight deregulation
No cuts to further education in Wales!
Campaign forces suspension of Wirral library closures
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