The Socialist 18 May 2011

Strike back at pensions robbery!

Strike back at pensions robbery!

Fight all the cuts - come to the NSSN conference

Battle for the NHS!

Derriford hospital announces huge cuts

Crisis deepens in the eurozone

The Hardest Hit march and rally

Teachers' strike stops job cuts

Iraq war: Labour's lie machine

Pay gap grows ever wider

News in brief

Britain now facing crisis on all fronts

Northern Ireland: The 'no change' elections

UCU at the crossroads on pensions

CWU conference: Support joint union action on 30 June

BA dispute: Mass meeting votes to put latest agreement to membership

Workplace news in brief

Con-Dems: Supporting Youth Enslavement

Yorkshire Youth Fight for Jobs regional conference

Tory cuts hit children and young people

Teachers strike and parents picket at Shorefields

Campaigners put pressure on Lambeth council

The difference a union makes

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Teachers strike and parents picket at Shorefields

Dave Walsh

Strike action by the NUT and NASUWT unions closed Shorefields secondary school in Dingle, Liverpool for the second time in a month on 11 May. Teaching staff fear that their pay terms and conditions would come under attack once the school opted out of local authority control. Pupils and parents, equally concerned about these plans, joined them on the picket line.

Dingle is one of Liverpool's most deprived areas but Shorefields produces consistently good academic results. Its latest Ofsted report said it had outstanding features.

Most pupils there are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds but community activists fear that once it becomes an academy it will stop providing education based on the community's needs and will concentrate its efforts on academic results and bus in pupils from around the city.

The school's headteacher hasn't concerned herself with the community's feelings, failing to consult and providing them with a fait accompli. And just in case the board of governors opposed her plans, she saw to it that they voted themselves out of existence, replacing them with trustees appointed by her and not answerable to the parents.

A community-based committee has already held two public meetings. A third is planned on 23 May and a lobby of the town hall is planned on 24 May.

The lobby should demand that the Labour controlled council should call in the proposals, which would give campaigners more time to block this privatisation. Liverpool Trades Council has actively supported the Shorefields campaign and invited them to attend their next meeting.

In this issue

Socialist Party workplace news

Strike back at pensions robbery!