The Socialist 20 October 2009

Postalworkers must win

Postal workers must win

Post - a battle that mass strike action can win

Afghanistan: Troops out!

Afghanistan - end the bloody occupation

Protests at the BBC: No to the far-right, racist BNP

WDL racists chased out of town

Sri Lanka protest: Shut down the prison camps!

Chinaworker.info journalist refused entry into China

Tommy Sheridan - a socialist fighter on a worker's wage

Laughing all the way to the bank

Fast news

FBU strike to defend fire service

Leeds bin workers fight on

Giant energy company hounds unemployed electrician

First bus drivers give bosses a 'fright'

400 jobs under threat at Leeds

Striking at London Metropolitan

Primary education: Report slams government policy

Union activists discuss pulling the plug on Labour

Conference on political representation

The Greatest Show on Earth: The evidence for Evolution

Hard Times by Charles Dickens, reviewed by Linda Taaffe

When Britain's spies backed Mussolini

Previous issues, etc

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400 jobs under threat at Leeds

On 8 October, hundreds of students and lecturers gathered outside Leeds university library to protest at the latest wave of cuts announced the day before by the university vice-chancellor. Lecturers burned their redundancy warning letters.

The university intends to make savings of around £35 million a year. The lecturers' union, UCU, says this will result in around 400 job losses, with biological sciences taking the hardest hit.

The university says it needs to make savings to protect itself from severe financial pressure in the future and that the scale of job reduction is not known but it will be "significant".

At the same time the university boasts about having a £380 million building programme, aiming to be in the top 50 of universities worldwide and of having made a budget surplus of £13.9 million this year.

It's one rule for students and lecturers and another for the top echelons of the university, which include vice-chancellor Michael Arthur - 20th highest paid in the country - on £244,000 a year according to the Yorkshire Evening Post.

The mood on the demonstration was positive, with one student suggesting that if a strike takes place a student-led occupation of the Uni will follow.