Socialist Party, formerly Militant

SOCIALIST PARTY

Friday, March 29, 2024

The Socialist issue 1072

5 February 2020

6.5 million working poor: Fight to end low pay

PDF | Audio | 2020 Back issues


The Socialist issue 1072

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News

spot6.5 million working poor: Fight to end low pay

There are now 6.5 million workers in the UK who are part of the “working poor.” There are now more people who are both working and in poverty than people who are officially unemployed.

spotLabour leadership contest and public ownership

A debate, of sorts, is opening up on nationalisation in the Labour leadership election. Support for public ownership – or not – is an indication of which class interests a party serves – workers or bosses.

spotCoronavirus exposes capitalism’s weaknesses in healthcare and economy

Tragedies like the deaths from novel coronavirus, over 400 at the time of writing, are never just ‘natural disasters’. They are not isolated from society. They are impacted by capitalism and also have an effect on the system itself.

spotRecord dissatisfaction with democracy: capitalism’s dead end

The strategists of capitalism are worried. Global levels of distrust in democracy are at an all-time high. In reality, this represents a growing dissatisfaction with capitalism itself.

spotRefuges turn away 64% of women – set no-cuts budgets now!

One of the most thorough reports about support services for people seeking to escape domestic abuse, researched by Women’s Aid and released om 28 January, confirmed that 64% of those who seek shelter in a refuge are turned away due to lack of funding.

spotGrenfell watch: Unions challenge ‘mockery of justice’

spotThem & Us

It’s one world for the super-rich and another one for us.

Rail

spotNationalise the railways: For an integrated public transport system

spotExpensive, overcrowded and unreliable: Renationalise the railways!

How hard can it be to run a train from Carlisle to Newcastle? The collapse of the Northern Rail franchise, forcing the Tories to renationalise the service, shows privatisation has not been the way.

spotCancel the franchise, not our trains

spotWill the North get investment and transport infrastructure?

What we think

spot‘Post-Brexit’ era of crisis ahead

Brexit Day has been and gone. Now Johnson is promising the “dawn of a new era”.

Workplace news

spotHuge victory for Bromley library workers after 241 days on indefinite strike!

Library workers in Bromley, south London have won a huge victory after eight months of continuous, indefinite strike action which began on 6 June 2019.

spot14 more days of university strikes over pensions, pay and conditions

The University and College Union (UCU) has announced 14 days of further strike action for universities currently in dispute over pensions, pay and conditions.

spot500 BBC journalists’ jobs under threat

BBC top management have announced that 500 journalists’ jobs are to go. This is a direct attack on the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). BBC journalists are the largest single group in the union.

spotNewham council tax workers’ pay victory

Unite members working as council tax benefit managers for Newham’s Labour council in east London have won a pay and grading claim after giving the employer notice of strike action to commence.

spotNo to academisation of east London schools!

Brentwood Catholic Diocese in east London wants to turn all its schools into academies. Already academisation at St Angela’s in Newham has been ruled out for five years after strike action.

spotEaling tax office workers strike against closure

NHS

spotOutrageous waiting times will put lives at risk

There has been a huge response to the announcement of the closure of the A&E at the Royal Glamorgan hospital. 200 people lobbied the Cwm Taf health board at short notice.

spotNHS: Save stroke beds in Coventry and Warwickshire

International

spotSyria: Assad regime consolidates power after brutal counterrevolution

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has succeeded, for now, in defeating the revolutionary uprising and subsequent armed rebellion that has swept over the country since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011.

spotIsrael/Palestine: Trump ‘peace plan’ promises further conflict

The recent ‘deal’ announced by US President Donald Trump and enthusiastically endorsed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was billed as a ‘Middle East peace plan’. But as the Economist journal wrote: “As a blueprint for a two-state solution it was dead on arrival”.

Campaigns

spotSocialist Party calls anti-austerity protest on Budget Day

Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary said: “We are calling this protest to say austerity must end”.

spotSadiq Khan “out-Tories” himself to defend tech firms’ tax bonanza

spotSocialist Sellers

Selling the Socialist and campaigning around the country.

spotReading Labour council: Stop privatising our leisure services

If the right-wing Labour council succeeds, a private company will be given a 25-year contract to design, build, operate and maintain Reading’s sports centres.

spotThe rich fund the Tories and Blairites, so help fund the working-class fightback

The Socialist Party needs you to increase your subs.

spotSupport the working-class press in 2020

Which paper details a fighting industrial strategy to beat the anti-union laws? Who explains how councils can set budgets that defy the Tory cuts? Where can you read about the practical programme needed to reconstitute a mass party for working-class political representation?

spotDefend and fight for warm, safe housing for Samira and everyone

Samira and her family have suffered damp and mouldy housing for ten years.

spotAlternative Burns Night success

Some came by word of mouth. Others saw our posters, read the article in the local paper or heard the interview on BBC Radio Cumbria.

Readers’ opinion

spotLiverpool council: “No more cuts” – Is Joe Anderson serious?

Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s elected mayor, has caused a publicity storm in the city by publicly announcing that he will refuse to make any more cuts at the behest of the Tory government.

spotSocialist Inbox

Letter’s to the Socialist’s editors.

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