The Socialist 21 July 2010

Warning: NHS under attack

Warning: NHS under attack

Youth and students: organise to fight for a future

Class struggles on the rise

Stand united, fight the cuts!

Lessons of the cuts

Education workers must teach Tories a lesson

Fast news

Union recommends BT pay deal

Stop the courts closures

Wales: No to fire service cuts

Strike action wins at Tube Lines

Swansea Linamar

Cuts blogger!

PCS: a strategy to stop the cuts

TUC refuses national demo

Unite the struggle to defend pensions

Con-Dems propose denationalisation of the NHS

The Socialist Party needs you!

More join the Socialist Party in Yorkshire

Funding the socialist fightback

Building new workers' parties and the tasks of socialists

Egypt: Thousands protest over brutal police killing

Harder work, longer hours... All part and parcel?

A testing 'pudding' for councillors

Keep probation services public

Previous issues, etc

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Education workers must teach Tories a lesson

TRADE UNIONS organising education workers, including NUT, NASUWT and UNISON, lobbied parliament on 19 July against the disgraceful cancelling of building and repair work to be carried out under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and the undemocratic fast-tracking of the Con-Dems' flagship Academies bill.

Greg Maughan

Over 1,000 education workers piled into Westminster central hall for a rally before lobbying MPs. Teachers had also mobilised students who posed for TV cameras with homemade banners and placards and later headed an impromptu march on the Department for Education office on Whitehall.

Students told The Socialist how major problems with their school building, including holes in the walls and broken windows, made it impossible for them to concentrate. These problems had been due to be fixed as part of BSF.

Education workers clearly have the support of their pupils, parents and the wider working class. Education workers' unions should be confident to call further action calling for improvements to be made to schools, though not involving profit-grabbing private firms who tend to divert resources from meeting students' and teachers' needs into the pockets of fat cats!

They should also call action against privatisation and the break-up of national trade union agreements stemming from the Academies bill.

This could include making preparation for strike action in September, but will also need to involve action to continue campaigning over the summer.

In this issue

Warning: NHS under attack