The Socialist 21 January 2009

No more bailouts for bosses!

Fast news: My Lords, Ladies and cash dispenser

Gaza war paves way for further conflict

Protesting against Gaza attacks

Egypt: Gaza conflict fuels anti-Mubarak opposition

Readers' comment: media reporting on Gaza

Hands off Royal Mail

Wirral anti-cuts campaign

Save jobs - nationalise JCB

Fighting the cuts in Greenwich

Shop workers need a fighting trade union leadership

Campaigning in Exeter

Hoover workers march in protest at job losses

Amicus election

Glasgow Unison

Obama takes power: What change will the Democrats bring?

Refugees and repression in war ravaged Sri Lanka

Exiled Zimbabweans demand Brown acts

Capitalism kills, concludes study of privatisation era

Lawyer assassinated

Opposing the expansion of Heathrow

Waltham Forest anti-incinerator campaign: Residents get results

Campaigners fight attacks on education and the environment

Students fight academy status

What's going on? The meanderings of a comic mind in confusion, by Mark Steel

Previous issues, etc

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Shop workers need a fighting trade union leadership

The Morrisons I work in dragged almost the entire workforce in over the Christmas period to do extra shifts to capitalise on higher sales. Now my shop, and the others in the area, have decided to repay the workforce by cutting back on hours. Of course, there are usually cutbacks on temporary staff that are taken on for Christmas, but this is much more.

In the name of saving money (or in reality keeping up the bosses' profits), staff have had their hours cut temporarily with some losing 24 hours of work per week! Others have been moved from working on Sundays, for which we get paid time and a half, to other days of the week.

Although a small proportion of the staff are affected directly, it will affect everyone indirectly as we'll all be expected to pick up the slack. It's another story of workers who have mortgages and rents to pay, suffering for the effects of the capitalist economic crisis.

Shop workers need a fighting trade union to represent them and fight for better conditions, and that's why I'd urge all Usdaw members to vote for Robbie Segal in the upcoming elections.