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Socialist Party news and analysis
What is missing from 99% of the EU referendum coverage? An independent working class voice, that’s what, writes Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, Socialist Party national organiser.
Motion passed for no-cuts council budgets
This afternoon, a composited motion calling on Welsh councils to set legal no-cuts budgets was passed unanimously at Wales TUC
Jobseekers told: take three-hour commute
Getting a job in austerity Britain is not a guaranteed or easy thing. I am a recent university graduate, and have spent the past couple of months job hunting. I can see how hard it can be to get your foot in the door – then we have this ridiculous ‘advice’ from the DWP.
Public asset sales will lose us money
Profit-hungry chancellor George Osborne will damage public finances by privatising the Land Registry and other public assets. A new report has found ongoing income would outstrip the sale’s windfall.
A Yorkshire council has permitted the UK’s first fracking operation since 2011. The Socialist Party opposes fracking, and fights for public ownership of energy and mass investment in green technology. Fracking is destructive wherever it happens. Anti-fracking campaigners must call for a ban on it everywhere – not just, as some prominent activists are demanding, in places of scenic beauty.
Disgruntled Labour right wingers are producing a new pamphlet trying to explain why they lost the 2015 general election.
It’s one world for the super-rich, and another one for the rest of us.
The BBC
Culture secretary John Whittingdale recently published the government’s White Paper plans on the future funding and governance of the BBC. Ken Smith explains what lies behind the changes and why they must be fought.
France
France: struggle against government intensifies
Far from abating, the battle over France’s labour law reform has intensified. The Hollande-Valls government has said it will impose the changes and is digging its heels in.
Workers across France are stepping up their action against the country’s new labour law, with strikes in various sectors and big demonstrations. The French working class has a long history of struggle, including widespread sit-in strikes in May-June 1936. To celebrate the 80th anniversary of this movement, and to learn its lessons, here we carry an extract from an article written by Socialist Party general secretary Peter Taaffe and published in Militant (predecessor of the Socialist) in 1978.
Fighting austerity: French strikes show the way
Come to the NSSN conference 2 July: Mass strike action has paralysed French oil refineries and nuclear power stations. Rail and other transport links have been severely disrupted, as workers demand that the government backs down and withdraws
What we think
Tories tearing themselves apart over EU referendum: vote leave to get Cameron out
Socialist Party workplace news
PCS conference takes serious approach to key political and industrial questions
Virtually one of the last motions to be moved at this year’s conference of the PCS civil servants’ union was to give full support to the BMA doctors’ union. General Secretary Mark Serwotka called on the TUC to organise a national day of action in support of the junior doctors and the NHS.
Could it be 3 strikes and you’re out at 2 Sisters?
“More for less” is the slogan of 2 Sisters Food Group. That means more for billionaire owner and chief executive Ranjit Singh Boparan, and less, much less, for the workers.
Welsh Government under attack at Wales TUC conference…and museum strikers close to victory
Socialist Party members, striking workers and real life helped spoil the love-in between the leadership of the trade union movement in Wales and the Welsh Government that the general council had planned for Wales TUC on 24-26 May.
University lecturers strike for fair pay
UCU members were out in force for the first day of UK-wide two-day strike action against a paltry 1.1% pay offer
Thomas Cook cabin crew to strike over breaks
In a fortnight of headlines littered with outbreaks of industrial disputes, 25 May didn’t disappoint. Thomas Cook cabin crew in Unite the Union voted by 74% to enter in to dispute with their employer.
BIS office closure: Anger and determination to fight on
Confirmation of the Business, Innovation and Skills Sheffield office closure came on 26 May
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Property speculators target Butterfields tenants
Pent Valley campaigners take council to judicial review
Kelly Griffiths, parent of a year 10 student at Pent Valley, is taking legal action against Kent County Council
George Tomlinson school: Academy fears
Parents of pupils at George Tomlinson primary school are furious. They fear their east London school could become an academy. Academy company Lime is on an expansion drive and has installed its own staff at the school.
Birmingham Labour council takes credit for Tory privatisation
Birmingham City Council’s troubled children’s services are to be handed over to an ‘independent’ trust. The department has been in special measures for eight years following a string of high profile failures resulting in the deaths of vulnerable children.
On 24 May the Peterborough and Stamford Hospital Trust agreed in principle a merger with Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
Get a copy of the Socialist from a workplace near you!
It’s a sunny Monday morning, two Socialist Party members stand outside Sheffield’s Moorfoot council office building.
International socialist news and analysis
Solidarity with protesters in Kazakhstan
Protesters from Campaign Kazakhstan and the Socialist Party delivered a letter to the Kazakhstan embassy in London condemning the actions of the Nazarbeyev regime
Portugal: Lisbon dockers’ victory
The Lisbon dockers strike, which started on 20 April, has in a significant victory to the dockers!, writes Militant strike action blocks bosses attempts to undermine collective bargaining.
Socialist Party comments and reviews
Engaging attack on finance capitalism and the capitalist media: Boxing similes abound in Jodie Foster’s ‘Money Monster’, and ultimately it pulls its punches.
Obituary: Simon Gomery 1968-2016
Simon spent much of his adult life in the Labour Party, but joined the Socialist Party in 2014. He had become increasingly disillusioned with a Labour Party he felt was detached from the working class, and was proud to have been formally expelled for nominating a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate in his ward for the 2014 elections.
Letters to the Socialist’s editors.
