Click image for PDF
Steel crisis
Workers’ action to nationalise steel
March, strike, occupy: 15,000 steel jobs are on the line, but the call to nationalise Tata is growing louder and the political pressure on Cameron to act is building!
Tata steel: Act now – fight for nationalisation
The jobs of 15,000 steelworkers directly employed by Tata are on the line. But when all those who depend on the plants are included, three times as many workers could be facing the dole. This is a national emergency that needs emergency measures.
My hometown lost its soul when the steelworks closed
I want a future: Growing up in Corby, there was nothing. There was no investment. The town centre was sold to private developers time and time again and the latest attempt at urban regeneration has left several uncompleted projects, empty buildings as monuments to failure.
Bosses’ and union tops’ “agenda of misery”
Steel crisis: I was a steelworker for almost 40 years. Skilled jobs, when they are gone are gone. I feel like I’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Needed: a real living wage – not Cameron’s sops
In many town and cities around the country, people greeted the government’s new ‘living wage’ – just £7.20 an hour, only for over-25s – with protests on its 1 April start date.
Library occupied in ‘siege’ against Blairite cutters
Carnegie Library in Lambeth, south London, is under community occupation. The borough’s Labour council closed it on 31 March to begin transforming it into yet another gym.
Save Pent Valley school demo demands a council u-turn
A hundred demonstrators staged a loud, colourful march through Folkestone on Saturday 2nd April against the threatened closure of Pent Valley secondary school. The closure is being driven by Tory-controlled Kent County Council and is the latest in a series of school closures across Kent.
Butterfields tenants and supporters ‘walk the walk’
“We have been treated like garbage. We are not garbage,” said Daniel, one of the tenants from the Butterfields estate in Walthamstow, east London. He was speaking at a ‘walk-the-walk’ event on 2 April organised by the campaign against evictions on the estate.
London Labour councils purge housing waiting lists
Labour councils in London have sat on their hands as the national housing crisis grips their boroughs. Now they resort to cooking the books and ‘pop-up homes’ to cover it up.
Fighting fund target smashed, again!
Socialist Party members raised a record £36,281 in the first three months of 2016 – smashing the target, getting to 145%.
Socialist Party news and analysis
Panama Papers: they’re all in it together!
Anonymous shell companies, foundations and trusts revealed in the ‘Panama Papers’ have been likened to “getaway cars” for the high-end criminal. You load up the swag and put your foot down. On second thoughts, drive as slowly as you like – the cops are in on it.
Getting the anti-austerity struggle onto the ballot paper
TUSC election challenge 2016: The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has stood candidates on a clear no-cuts platform since its formation in 2010. But won’t standing this time undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s aim to change Labour into an anti-austerity party?
TUSC in ‘surprise bid’ for official exit lead
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has launched what the BBC called a “surprise bid” to be the official Leave campaign in June’s referendum on European Union membership
TUSC councillor calls on trust to reject new junior doctors contract
A Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) councillor in Warrington, Cheshire, is calling on his local NHS trust not to implement the new junior doctors’ contract.
The first European Union (EU) boats deporting refugees arrived in Turkey from Greece on 4 April. The Socialist condemns the deportations.
It’s one world for the super-rich, and another one for the rest of us. Panama Papers versus workers’ wages; brokers’ binge versus self-employment poverty,
NHS facilities to start paying market rents
Some parts of the NHS will now have to pay market-rate rents on their facilities.
Uber and Facebook tax dodge scandal
International taxi firm Uber is registered in a tax haven. And Facebook could spend years not paying UK corporation tax, due to £21 million of deferred tax relief.
International socialist news and analysis
Sanders campaign: build a new party of the 99%!
The US presidential election campaign represents a turning point in the country and the struggles of the working class and all those exploited by capitalism.
Short stories on workers’ struggles around the world. Germany socialist conference success; Belgian socialists arrested for challenging far right.
Workplace news and analysis
Northern Powerhouse or Northern poorhouse?
Save BIS Sheffield: It is clear that the attempts by this Tory government to drive a coach and horses through all the gains we have won have no bounds. Latest is the complete decimation of the civil service, which could see more than 600 government buildings close throughout the UK.
Land Registry workers ready to fight privatisation
At 5pm on the evening before parliament recessed for Easter, plans to consult on the proposed privatisation of Land Registry were sneakily released by George Osborne’s office.
Workers and campaigners fight to save library
Unite members in the Socialist Party-led Greenwich branch defending the mobile library from closure held an open air story time on the steps of the town hall on 30 March.
RMT protests against new Northern Rail franchise
Socialist Party and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition members joined members of the RMT union protesting against this at Leeds station on 1 April. Many remarked on the irony that we’d been campaigning for the franchise to be re-nationalised, but the only nationalisation the Tory government seems to approve is to other state rail operators.
Short reports on some of the latest trade union struggles. Action against academies; bin workers strike; hospital caterers fight sell-off.
Socialist readers’ comments
Homelessness holding kids back, says teacher
As teachers, we know that if children are living in poverty and deprivation, it will adversely affect their mental health and in turn their learning. In this data-driven education system, this is one thing that can be measured.
Stop divisive attacks on pensioners’ cash
Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation from the Department for Work and Pensions opened up another malevolent attack on pensioners.
Do you have something to say? Letters to the Socialist’s editors. Women’s wages; US Democratic primaries; Birmingham and Reading cuts budgets; dole disgrace; Blairites back bosses’ EU and erase Labour’s socialist history.
