17 articles from the Socialist, issue 438

4 May 2006

NHS workers demand action

Magnificent NHS demonstration through Stoke-on-Trent on 29 April 2006

THE CAMPAIGN to defend the NHS from government attacks is growing. It has recently been boosted by the decision at UNISON health conference to back industrial action and the magnificent demonstration through Stoke-on-Trent on 29…

Swansea ballot shows depth of support for NHS

SWANSEA SOCIALIST Party members, campaigning against the loss of hospital beds, say the public are on our side after an informal ballot held in the city centre on 29 April…

Liberals withdraw Cardiff schools closure plans…

OVER 1,000 parents and school students turned up to lobby Cardiff Liberal council last week as the council intended to close 22 schools and threaten 300 teaching jobs across the city. The school students travelled to the demo in specially hired open buses, accompanied by brass bands and the like.

Socialist Party members’ election successes

Press release Socialist Party members – standing as Socialist Alternative candidates and on behalf of Save Huddersfield’s NHS campaign – scored outstanding successes in the local elections.

Defending jobs and services

Solidarity on the PCS picket line: ON 2-3 May, Jobcentres, benefit offices, pension centres and the Child Support Agency (CSA) were hit by strike action as 80,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) held a two-day stoppage over worsening service levels and job cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)…

LSC staff say "enough is enough"

"WHEN WILL Mark Haysom stop running the LSC as a PLC – before or after his knighthood?" This was typical of the comments from the Sheffield picket line about the chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) last Friday, 28 April, writes Marion Lloyd, PCS national executive committee.

Nine days that shook Britain

TO COMMEMORATE the 80th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike in Britain and, more importantly, to draw out the lessons from this movement, Peter Taaffe (pictured left) – the Socialist Party’s general secretary – has written a book outlining the nine days that shook British capitalism to its foundation…

USA – immigrant workers strike to demand equal rights

USA, MONDAY 1 May: Shops, farms, restaurants, meat processing companies and factories closed; parts of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities are brought to a standstill; workers, school students, perhaps half-a-million in Chicago alone, join in demonstrations and protest rallies across the country…..

US students say ‘education not war’

THOUSANDS OF students across the US ‘Twin Cities’ [Minneapolis and St Paul] walked out of class on 28 April to protest against the occupation of Iraq and military recruitment in schools, and demanding money for education and social needs, not war, writes Socialist Alternative members.

Germany: WASG national congress – shift to the right

AMID THREATS by part of the national leadership to split away, last weekend’s national congress of the WASG* (Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice) agreed to unify with the Linkspartei.PDS (L.PDS, Left Party/PDS – the former East German ‘Communists’) and to take measures against the Berlin WASG if it went, writes Robert Bechert, CWI, Berlin.

End of Berlusconi era – clean break needed with neo-liberal policies

Italy: SILVIO BERLUSCONI, the tycoon prime minister of Italy for five years, has finally resigned. The general election of 9-10 April gave the centre-left Unione alliance a paper thin majority in both houses of parliament (See article…