The Socialist 27 January 2016

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Davos summit: a broken capitalist system

Google pays pittance for avoiding £2bn tax

Red doors and wristbands scandal

Steelworkers may face benefit cut-off for not seeking bar jobs

Oscars snub black artists: fight racism and austerity in the arts

Labour councillor smears TUSC policy as 'BNP'

Them & Us

Top tweets: #TraditionallySubmissive

Teaching: a perfect storm is brewing

Teachers need national strategy for a national struggle

A day in the life of a teacher and mother

New wave of protests in Tunisia

India: student death exposes caste oppression

Tories 'Prevent' civil liberties

Labour councillor suspended for fighting cuts

Dave Nellist's byelection appeal to Jeremy Corbyn: 'let's discuss how to fight the cuts'

Labour election post-mortem: nothing to report!

The dark arts of Labour's right

Councillors must fight to defend our services

'People's budgets' and local democracy

Lewisham: no backsliding in council cuts fight!

"I have left work many times in tears" - a council worker

Trade union bill will stretch resources and limit action

Birmingham teachers strike to resist academy attack

24-hour tube strike suspended

Care services under threat in Haringey

Workplace news in brief

The end for deep coal mining jobs in Britain

Obituary: Dean Meehan 1962-2016

Letters

Protesting against closure of Huddersfield A&E

Coventry children's services closure protest

New Socialist Party branch fights against St Austell austerity

Socialist Party discusses the fight for socialism

Socialist Students bake-off

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Steelworkers may face benefit cut-off for not seeking bar jobs

The blast furnace at Redcar steelworks, photo by Jeff Pardoen (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)

Rudi Abdallah

Skilled steelworkers, recently made redundant, could apparently face punishing benefit sanctions - for refusing to seek low-paid work which doesn't use their skills.

2,200 workers lost their jobs when the SSI steelworks in Redcar, North Yorkshire closed last October. Redcar's Labour MP Anna Turley told parliament that job centres have reprimanded steelworkers for not applying to shops and bars.

Claimants are meant to have a 13-week window to apply for similarly high-skilled work. Yet Turley says they've been ordered to apply for lower-skilled jobs only two weeks in.

Reportedly, one apprentice with nearly three years' experience was told "he should get a job in a bar". Of course, serving beer is what logically follows years of training in steelmaking.

The Department for Work and Pensions denies this has occurred. But the workers shouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Slashed

Since last summer, profit-hungry firms have slashed nearly 5,000 jobs. Tata, SSI and others claim they are unable to contend with a cocktail of issues, ranging from high energy costs to cheap Chinese steel.

Across the country, beleaguered steelworkers have been betrayed by callous Tories, uninterested in helping working class people - who make all the riches they and their mates own.

In a shocking example of double standards, the Tories supported Gordon Brown bailing out the greedy banks that wrecked the economy in 2007. But they have refused to intervene here, claiming the situation is beyond their control.

Nationalise steel under the democratic control of workers and the community. Steelworkers are blameless. Public ownership would return their dignity, and retain valuable skills.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill