Archive for cuts

5th December – Public meeting – Fight till we win!

02/12/2011 Drew Walton No comments
Socialist Party public meeting – Leicester University, 7.30pm, Tuesday
5th December. (Venue TBC, but likely to be Ken Edwards Building).

On Wednesday around 3 million public service workers went on strike – the biggest day of action since 1926. In Leicester around 5000 trade unionists marched in one of the biggest rallies in the city for decades. We need to turn this into a movement to defeat not just the Tory / Lib Dem cuts but also to put forward a socialist alternative.

What programme does the Socialist Party put forward to stop attacks on pay and conditions? How can we put pressure on the leadership of trade unions to escalate the action if the government do not back down? What alternative do we pose to the argument that the cuts are a necessary evil and how can we stop the cuts?

We say that cuts are not necessary and that there is the wealth in society to provide a decent pension and well-paid employment for all, if the wealth were controlled by the vast majority of the population. Ordinary people did not cause the economic crisis, so they should not have to pay for it. We need a mass campaign and a mass political party to put across the ideas of socialism, rather than put up with the lesser evilism of New Labour and the Tories. Milliband does not support the strikers, so why should we support Labour? We argue that we need build working-class political representation.

Come along to the meeting and join in the discussion.

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cuts, Public Sector Strike, trade unions

Support striking public sector workers on November 30th

22/11/2011 Drew Walton No comments

Anger at the government’s attacks on pensions and public sector cuts have led to trade unions voting for the largest co-ordinated strike action in Britain since the general strike of 1926. 3-4 million public sector workers will be striking. We are not going to work until we are 68, or put up with cuts to vital services.

Unions on strike include UNISON, UNITE, GMB, the teachers’ unions and civil service unions. The National Shop Stewards Network has played an important role in lobbying the TUC to call for the public sector general strike in the first place.

Leicester Socialist Party will be supporting striking workers by offering solidarity on local picket lines from 7am and joining in the march and rally from High St to the Athena (assemble 11am outside the Orange Tree on Wednesday 30th). We will be marching in the Leicestershire Against The Cuts contingent.

Get involved

There is a joint trade union public meeting on 22nd November at the Adult Education Centre, Wellington St, 7.30pm.

Our usual branch meeting has been postponed to Wednesday 23rd November at the Turkey Café, Granby St, 7.30pm and the following Tuesday (29th November, 7.30pm) there will be an organising meeting to plan action on the 30th.

Leicestershire Against The Cuts are hosting an interactive meeting on Saturday 10th December to discuss the way forward for the campaign after November 30th. This will be held at the Adult Education Centre, Wellington St from 11am.

All welcome.

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cuts, Public Sector Strike, trade unions

We cannot work for nothing. Fully fund the NHS!

28/09/2011 Drew Walton No comments

SOCIALIST PARTY PUBLIC MEETING

TUESDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER, 7:30PM, F BAR, 95 WALNUT ST, LE2 7LA

The Chief Executive of UHL has threatened that staff will not be paid in August and September, if current spending rates continue at Leicester’s hospitals. Already, 200 staff have not been paid for overtime this month. Staff have been asked to take unpaid leave or reduce their hours.

The Socialist Party totally condemns this action and is calling a public meeting to launch a campaign to demand that staff receive their full pay.

Management are saying that not keeping to financial plans would have ‘terminal consequences’ for the hospital’s application to become a Foundation Trust. Instead of putting patient care first they are prioritising finances. It is dangerous to expect ‘efficiency savings’ to make up the shortfall when wards are already chronically under staffed.

Foundation Trusts will force hospitals to compete with each other rather than co-operate to provide the best care. They mean that hospitals could go bankrupt. In Leicester, UHL Trust has to make budget cuts, year on year over the next 5 years amounting to £158m, due to spending cuts from the government.

These cuts could be stopped, if UNISON, the main union in the NHS, had a fighting leadership, combined with industrial action by the other public sector unions. The Socialist Party calls for a 24-hour public sector general strike.

The Tories were lying when they said that they would not cut the NHS. Jobs will have to be slashed as a result. Yet the process of privatisation, encouraging hospitals to become Foundation Trusts began under Labour. All three main parties are in hock to the interests of big business – ordinary people need to build their own party to represent their interests.

The money is there to fully fund our public services. The government bailed out our banks with over £1 trillion. The economic crisis was caused by the rich and big business, not public sector workers. The money exists to pay for jobs, education and healthcare for all but it is the hands of tiny minority.

The Socialist Party is against all cuts in public services. We demand:

  • Staff to be guaranteed pay in accordance with their contracts, including overtime and enhancements.
  • Services should be properly funded and wards staffed to meet patient need, not financial profit.
  • For an all-members meeting of the trade unions to be held urgently to discuss action, including industrial action, to defeat these attacks.
  • No cuts to jobs and services.
  • No to Foundation Trusts and privatisation. For a fully publicly-funded, democratically run NHS.

The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers’ International which operates in 40 countries across the world. We need an international fightback against a rotten capitalist system, which will always seek to erode past gains made by working people, such as the NHS and the welfare state.

Read more about how the NHS could be transformed, with a socialist programme.

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Riots in Leicester: Display of anger amongst young people

10/08/2011 Becci Heagney No comments

Yesterday afternoon in Leicester, shops closed early as police gathered on the streets in anticipation that the wave of anger shown across the country would arrive in the city.

While a few groups of young people gathered around the clock tower, in Highfields the community centre held a meeting. They discussed how they should respond to the riots and the shocking number of people who have died at the hands of the police. Around 20 young people marched into town holding banners saying ‘Peace on the Streets’. Their aim was to speak to the youth thinking about rioting and convince them to protest peacefully.

Youth Fight for Jobs supporters and Socialist Party members went along to support the protest, which swelled to about 100 people. Many people there were looking for a way to fight back and organise around the outburst of anger being seen. There was interest in the Youth Fight for Jobs march against youth unemployment from Jarrow to London in October and people bought copies of our newsletter ‘The Spark’.

One of the organisers from Highfields Community Centre said to me:

“This has been a long time coming. Even since the last government, the Labour government back in 1997. The youth have no power, no direction , they’re full of anger. I’m upset about [the riots] but I’m not surprised and in a way it needs to be done for people to really wake up. It started as a peaceful protest over another incident. They needed an excuse. The youth have got a voice, they need to be heard.”

Then a few members of the English Defence League turned up, coming into the crowd and deliberately provoking the mainly Black and Asian youth by saying “I’m glad Mark Duggan got shot, he deserved it.” Once a few more had arrived they started chanting “EDL”. Understandably, the youth reacted to this. It was under a year ago when Highfields came under attack by an EDL protest. There was a small confrontation between the youth and the EDL until the police stepped in and pushed the protesters back.

The protest was then forced up the street by riot police and dogs as they tried to kettle the protest. Anger was then directed at the police with people chanting “justice” and calling them racist. One young man stood on a bench to read a poem about corruption in the police force – he was saying “if we can’t trust the police, what do we do? We come on to the streets and get justice ourselves.”

Eventually the protest was allowed to disperse. There were still groups of young people smashing windows and looting in Leicester late into the night but these were not connected to the organisers of the original protest.

Hypocritically, the EDL mobilised to act as vigilantes to protect Leicester against riots. They called on their members to patrol the streets, even saying that they should cancel all their ‘demonstrations’ in August to help the police! Last October they were not so concerned with smashing windows of takeaways and shops in the city, attacking innocent by-standers and attempting to attack the mosque in Highfields.

The EDL and their racist views do not represent working class people in Leicester who are concerned about the increased rioting in the city. It is not something organised by ‘Muslim groups’ as they are trying to portray. The protest that they attacked was peaceful, demanding that something is done to deal with the under-lying causes of the riots.

We need a community and trade union response to the riots, involving workers and youth. We do not condone the riots and violence that is taking place. But, it is happening for a reason. In Leicester, one third of those claiming Job Seekers Allowance are under 25. Highfields has the highest unemployment level in the city.

The government and the local Labour council should be investing in youth services and real jobs and a decent education for young people. The Jarrow March this year is an opportunity for young people to harness their anger in an organised and trade union backed campaign that is putting forward these demands.

The Socialist Party demands:

 

  • An independent trade union-led inquiry into the death of Mark Duggan and into the causes of and policing of the riots. Scrap the IPCC. We need police accountability through democratic control by local people.
  • End stop and search. No to section 60.
  • For control of the police to be placed under the auspices of democratically elected local committees involving representatives from trade unions, councils, tenants associations, and community organisations.
  • For the government to immediately cover the uninsured losses and repairs of all small businesses and homeowners affected by the riots.
  • For councils to immediately re-house those who lost their homes in the riots. For investment in social house building and renovation, creating jobs and improving health.
  • For the immediate reversal of the closure of local youth and Connexions services. Funding from central government to pay for it.
  • No to all cuts in jobs and public services. Free education and training for all. Reinstate EMA and abolish tuition fees. We demand huge public investment in job creation and services.
  • Build a mass campaign to fight for these demands but also to fight for socialist change in the way society is run, with democratic planning of how we use the wealth and resources of society – under working class control and management, not that of the millionaires.

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cuts, Reports, riots , , , , , , , , ,

UHL: making staff and patients pay!

22/07/2011 Becci Heagney No comments

University Hospital Leicester trust has come up with a ’10 point plan’ of cuts because it says it overspent by £8m on the first few months of this year. The trust is applying to become a Foundation Trust and also needs to make £158m worth of cuts over the next five years as a result of the government’s spending cuts.

Yesterday, the Head of Finance Andrew Seddon announced to staff that there will be more than 400 jobs slashed by the end of March 2012. There will also be a rise in car-parking charges. This is on top of 200 staff not being paid for over-time for this month and being threatened they may not be paid at all next month!

This will mean that while hundreds of people will be thrown on the dole queue, there will be over-worked and under-paid staff in the hospitals who cannot give patients the care and attention they need. And patients and their friends and relatives will have to pay more to visit the hospital!

Liberal Democrat member, and candidate for the by-election in Leicester South this year, has been quoted in the Leicester Mercury as saying “I am disappointed that car parking charges will be going up but the reality is a choice between that and patient care.” The Socialist Party completely disagrees!

Billions of pounds go uncollected in tax each year, money that is owed to the country by the rich but is not paid. Yet the government is attacking public services and working class people rather than those who caused the economic crisis! There is enough money in the hands of the rich to provide good quality, free health care for all, including the ability to park at the hospital for free; staff can be employed on the basis of need and not profit – and receive the pay that they are entitled to!

A campaign of staff and service users should be launched to defend the NHS in Leicester. Unfortunately, the trade union that represents workers in the hospital, UNISON, has done little-to-nothing on this issue. UNISON members should be demanding that the union urgently holds an all-members meeting to discuss action to prevent these brutal attacks.

Socialist Party members in Leicester support Leicestershire Against the Cuts (LAC), a broad campaign against all cuts to jobs and services, no matter which party makes them. The group is holding an ‘Assembly Against the Cuts’ on 24th September at Highfields Community Centre (more details to follow). Staff and patients effected by these attacks should come along and join the fightback!

Visit the LAC website here.

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