Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Monday, 12 December 2011
TUSC News
UNISON: Queen Mary University bans trade union victimisation public meeting.
Southampton Unison, Unite and Ucatt members reject Councils pay cut settlement
Monday, 15 August 2011
Building TUSC into 2012
A framework plan for developing TUSC into 2012
20 July 2011
The proposals below have been circulated amongst the TUSC steering committee with general agreement. However, some trade union members of the steering committee want to discuss them further amongst TUSC supporters within their unions before they formally endorse them. In accordance with the federal character of TUSC therefore, they are still draft proposals waiting for agreement by the constituent parts of the coalition.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has now been in existence for 18 months.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Monday 23 May 2011
Spanish square austerity protests grow by the hour.
Thousands of people have massed in city centres across the country in a swelling movement that began on May 15, the biggest spontaneous protests since the property bubble exploded in 2008 and plunged Spain into a recession.
Youtube video here http://bit.ly/l2swYo. Report here: http://bit.ly/kOtQM3 and picture here: http://bbc.in/maRLRV and live streaming from Puerto del Sol can be found here http://bit.ly/isU8tT
TUSC calls conference on 16 July in London to plan strategy for year ahead to 2012 elections – 10.30 registration for 11am start.
The TUSC Steering Committee met on 9 May and agreed to call together everyone who stood as a candidate, their agents and key campaign supporters in the recent elections to review the recent campaign and plan ahead for the coming year.
In addition, the conference will probably be extended to include all of those who may be thinking of standing in the 3 May 2012 local elections in 128 English Local Authorities and all Welsh Councils. You can see the full list here: http://bit.ly/jPuYoV
The TUSC Steering Committee will be meeting on 13 June to discuss an agenda for the day. The emphasis will be on discussing the strategic and campaigning lessons of our recent campaign and planning early for the 2012 elections. It is likely that there will also be a separate meeting, on another date, to discuss the Greater London Assembly and London Mayoral elections which also take place in 2012.
We will let you have further details about time and venue. Plan to arrive and register for a conference starting at 11am. There will be a small registration fee to help pay for the event but we will keep the costs low to enable as many to attend as possible. If you have suggestions about items for discussion please let us have them at tuscbulletin@yahoo.co.uk
From the Unions
PCS votes for co-ordinated strike action to fightback against ‘brutal government’.
Mark Serwotka said ‘In leading our members into battle, not only do we know it’s right to do so, but we can be proud of that fact that already we have helped four other unions come to the conclusion that we have come to, and if we make a stand in June, we could be the difference that gets millions of others out on strike as well, that could turn the tide against this government. I know that’s the right thing to do. I know it’s going to be tough. But I have confidence in you as our activists and our members to deliver… a massive strike, and begin the fight back against this brutal government.’ Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/jT9EHf
Heathrow Express rail workers vote 95 per cent in favour of strike action in pay dispute.
RMT members based at Heathrow Airportand Paddington will strike for 48 hours on Friday May 27, and for 24 hours on Friday June 24. Further action will also be scheduled in July. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: ‘The company knows it has tabled a completely unacceptable pay offer that is loaded with strings, yet despite a massive vote for action by our members it has made no attempt to negotiate or improve its offer.’ For more read here: http://bit.ly/jFvcHM
FBU conference prepares for national strike action
A strike in the fire service over changes to the pension scheme came a step nearer today as the Fire Brigades Union conference asked members to ‘prepare for national strike action.’ Read more here: http://bit.ly/khtbeH
UCATT warns HSE cuts risk workers safety
Construction union UCATT is warning that planned cuts in how dangerous incidents are reported will greatly increase dangers in the workplace. Last week the Health and Safety Executive announced that from September 2011 it was closing its infoline and that in future the reporting of accidents and dangerous incidents could only be undertaken online. For more: http://bit.ly/mqFA1f
Turkey criminalizes union action
The Turkish government has filed criminal charges against 111 union leaders, members and supporters which carry prison terms of up to 5 years in connection with a 2010 demonstration in Ankara. The Ankara action was in support of 12,000 workers made redundant overnight following the privatization of the state tobacco monopoly TEKEL. Read more here http://bit.ly/j9FIqG
Defend Iraqi Trade Unions
The Iraqi government have launched a crackdown on unions, with a heavily politicised committee appointed to take over union elections, assets and offices: See http://bit.ly/l98cGX
Minneapolis Grocery Store Cleaners Launch Hunger Strike
A mad dash to outsource cleaning services to the lowest bidder has cut wages to minimum wage (sometimes less) with no benefits. A Minneapolis worker center announced a hunger strike to protest the conditions. See:http://bit.ly/kKVwvA
Cuts action coming up
Picket of Pickles, Cambridge
UNISON and the PCS Cambridge Branches are holding a ‘Picket of Pickles’ from 6pm on Tuesday 24 May at Bridge Street in Cambridge. Bring banners, placards, friends and family and let’s give Pickles a warm Cambridgeshire welcome.
Bolton Uncut: Defend Our NHS
Bolton TUC and Uncut campaigners are organising a protest outside Barclays Bank in Bolton Town Centre from 12:00 lunchtime on Thursday 26 May to protest at money for bankers while cuts are being made to our NHS. Organised by Bolton Trades Council
Yorkshire regional conference on cuts
Saturday 28 May 2011, 12:00 noon at the PCS Office, 3rd Floor, Town Centre House, Merrion Centre, Leeds, Leeds LS2. A conference to discuss building the campaign across Yorkshire. Entry £2 - proceeds go towards funding the Jarrow March for Jobs.
CornwallSleep-Out Protest Against Supporting People Cuts May 29th
The Supporting People service which provides sheltered housing and homelessness support, is being slashed by 40 per cent despite Cornwall having the second highest rate of homelessness in England. A ‘sleep-out’ demonstration is taking place on 29 May from 8pm until 7am the next day outside Truro Cathedral. Bring a sleeping bag! Hot drinks will be provided. More information here.
Information burst
Food prices, food crisis…what’s going on?
The food crisis and its consequent misery, starvation and deaths are not inevitable, says Hamid Sodeifi, but are rather the necessary and rational outcomes of a socio-economic system whose sole objective is the creation of profits. Short article here: http://bit.ly/j1fxzT
It takes more than 600 lawyers to run a privatized railway
A response from TUC and rail unions to the McNulty Review on rail value for money, can be found here PDF file (188,405 bytes). Bob Crow explains why nationalized railways would serve us all better on Radio 4 Today programme here: http://bbc.in/lMjw05 (it begins at 1hr 13 minutes) and reveals that Network Rail has a mere 600 lawyers to deal with legal problems arising from fragmentation.
Don’t mess with May Day
The government have launched a consultation on moving May Day bank holiday to October. But why not keep it and have an extra October day as well? We could do with it! Send your message to the consultation and help raise support on Twitter: http://www.tuc.org.uk/keepmayday
Boss replies to low tax criticisms
'I couldn't care less. I will continue to do what I do'. Stefano Pessina, chairman of Boots, when challenged on criticisms that last year Boots had only paid £25m in tax on profits of £637m.
Wage theft in the US: http://www.wagetheft.org/
TUSC information
You can find out more about TUSC at: http://www.tusc.org.uk/index.php
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TUSC aims to bring trade unionists, socialists and anti-cuts campaigners together to stand candidates at elections who are committed to representing working-class interests. Resistance to the cuts is vital, but we also need a political alternative to the policies of cuts and privatisation. TUSC believes that a new working-class party is needed that campaigns for a democratic socialist society run in the interests of the millions not the millionaires.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
THE FIGHT AGAINST CUTS GOES ON!
The Lib Dems have been removed completely and the Tories have lost six seats leaving them with a rump of just two. Community Voice have also lost all their seats along with other independents.
Particularly welcome is the complete removal from the council of the far right, racist BNP but we should not be complacent about this because in the wards where they stood they polled an average of 10% whilst the other far right organisation England First averaged 12.5%.
The average 3.9% vote obtained by the six Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition candidates standing in our first ever council elections are therefore impressive where the desire by many to punish the Con Dems by voting New Labour locally has squeezed the vote for the smaller parties.
This also with a background of the local media completely ignoring our campaign. Compare this to the Sentinel front page coverage (more than once) when the BNP announced they would be standing seven candidates in 2003.
The first time TUSC stood a candidate in Stoke-on-Trent was only last year in the general election when Socialist Party member Matt Wright stood in Stoke Central Constituency. A comparison between then and now shows a small but very significant increase in support for TUSC.
At the 2010 general election 133 people voted TUSC out of the 32,470 who voted across the Central constituency. In these local elections we have stood in six wards. In those wards, from just 12,656 who voted, 486 voted for TUSC. That’s an increase of 353 votes from almost 20,000 less voters! Of some importance also is that our best percentage of the vote, 5.4%, was won in the ward where the leader of the BNP was standing.
The most important feature of these elections was the emergence of TUSC to provide an organised trade unionist and Socialist based opposition and alternative to all the savage cuts implemented by the Con Dem government and the city council. Socialist Party members and other trade unionists particularly from the PCS and CWU formed the backbone of the election campaign.
Disgracefully, local members of the Socialist Workers Party, despite being a component part of TUSC, have completely ignored our campaign. In the words of a prominent New Labour campaign activist they have instead been ‘arse lickers’ to New Labour – “They do anything we tell them”, he said.
New Labour should enjoy their jubilation at winning control of the city council while they can because their problems have only just begun. During New Labour’s election campaign they falsely claimed to have ‘Saved the Children’s Centres’. During the last week of the election campaign Save our Children’s Centres campaigners were out everyday collecting names objecting to the council cut of 30% in funding as ‘unacceptable’. This will increasingly be the music of the future!
In the fight against cuts, the New Labour dominated city council will need to decide individually and collectively which side they are on. They can be part of the Con Dem drive to take us back to the misery, poverty and unemployment of the 1930′s or they can adopt the fighting traditions of the 1980′s – of the miners, of Liverpool’s Socialist Council, of the mass movement against the Poll Tax which defeated Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government.
We are not prepared to stand by while we are taken back to the 1930′s! In the weeks and months ahead we will developing further the fight against all cuts.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
It's official - in Stoke-on-Trent only TUSC will fight against cuts!
Over forty trade unionists, community campaigners and students heard Nick Gore from the Lib Dems explain why cuts ‘were necessary’ that ‘it was Labour’s fault’ etc.
Much more important however was the clear difference between TUSC’ s opposition to all cuts and the position taken by Mohammed Pervez, Labour leader and leader of Stoke-on-Trent’s Cuts Coalition. He defended Labour’s and the Coalition’s savage cuts of £36 million as being necessary because of government funding cuts and that there was nothing we could do.
Scialist Party member and TUSC candidate for Meir North, Andy Bentley, speaking from the platform, explained that, “this was not true and that some of the £61 million reserves that Stoke-on-Trent city council has along with legal borrowing powers could have been used to prevent these cuts linked to a citywide campaign to force the government to provide extra resources”
In response, Mohammed Pervez lamely told us that he had sent letters of protest to government Ministers but they had still not budged! Approaching the use of reserves and borrowing as a bank manager he ruled this out because it would cost more in the future. But this is to ignore the linking of such measures to the building of a campaign to demand more money from the government.
Most of the Labour councillors, election candidates and members present had nothing to say about actually fighting against cuts. Labour Party member and North Staffs TUC President Jason Hill who is spearheading a so called ‘relaunch’ of North Staffs Against Cuts with a new constitution whose first aim is “To stop all public sector cuts” was silent at this event. (For the background to this divisive attempt to set up a rival anti-cuts alliance to that which was officially launched at a Conference on 21 January 2011 see http://www.stokesocialistparty.org.uk/?p=796 )
Most bizarre contributions from the floor came from Socialist Workers Party members. Rob Cartlidge posed a question to all those on the platform, “why should young people vote?” Andy pointed out to him that, “as your Party, the SWP, are a component part of TUSC and are also standing TUSC candidates across the country I would have thought you would be calling on young people to vote for TUSC and that your help with the TUSC campaign in Stoke-on-Trent would be welcome”
SWP member Abigail’s only contribution was to ask Andy, “Why do you keep attacking Labour?” This, despite the fact Andy had already pointed out that, “Labour said they wouldn’t introduce Tuition Fees and they did, they said they would repeal the anti trade union laws and they didn’t, they made the gap between richer and poorer greater, took us into two wars, increased the casualisation of labour, attacked pay and conditions of workers and are now carrying out savage cuts in jobs and services – need I go on?”
Mohammed Pevez’s statement that Labour ‘had saved Children’s Centres’ was met with disbelief and anger by Alan Lear who has been one of the Save Our Children’s Centres’ campaigners who forced Labour and the Cuts Coalition to remove the threat to seven of the sixteen centres across the city. To read Alan’s written response click on link below
http://pitsnpots.co.uk/news/2011/04/stoke-trents-socc-angry-labour-leaflet-claims
This was an important event in the city and special thanks should go to PCS youth rep Jo Mee for organising it because it provided an important opportunity to discuss publicly a serious alternative to the usual diet of ‘we must make cuts’. More than fifteen thousand TUSC leaflets given out across the six wards where we are standing and events like this one have forced the issue of a real alternative to cuts on to the agenda.
In summing up Andy told the meeting that these were
“the most important local elections in Stoke-on-Trent for decades. Why? Firstly, because we need to stop this cycle of cuts, cuts and more cuts. Secondly that councillors elected will be in place for four years and we can’t afford four more years of cuts.
On 5 May people in Stoke-on-Trent are faced with a clear choice, you can vote for Lib Dem, Tory, Labour, BNP, Community Voice or others and you will guarantee job losses, cuts, closures and privatisations or you can vote for TUSC for a fight against those cuts”
- – - – - STOP PRESS – - – - -
Apparently Labour Party members during the PCP hustings event were tweeting about TUSC and the Socialist Party wanting to “take us back to the 1980′s”.
The reality is that the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem’s plans for savage cuts, if not stopped, will take us back to the mass poverty and unemployment of the 1930′s. But they are right about the Socialist Party wanting to rebuild the 1980′s fighting traditions of the miners, Liverpool’s Socialist Council and the victory over Thacher’s Poll Tax.
Nothing less will suffice in the struggle against the three main parties attempt to make ordinary working class people pay for a crisis created by big business, top bankers and successive governments.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Successful Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition Election Rally in Hanley
TUSC candidate for Meir North Andy Bentley spoke at the meeting and Sunara from Coventry highlighted the work being done in Coventry and explained how having Dave Nellist as a figurehead helps to bring the profile of the Socialist Party into the public eye.
Andy stressed the need for a new workers party to represent the working class and that TUSC was a small but significant step to achieving that. He explained how the TUSC candidates all stood on a platform of no to all cuts and would, if elected, fight to achieve that in the councils across Britain. He highlighted the fact that the Labour Party no longer listened to the working class and if elected they would still carry out cuts maybe slower but inevitably the working class would suffer however slow it was done.
The discussion was very positive and concentrated on developing a strategy to defeat cuts. A PCS rep spoke about the need for a nation wide public sector strike. Everyone in the room agreed and pledged to talk to their workmates about voting for strike action. It was also agreed that we needed to get the private sector involved.
An ex-miner, who was one of the youngest NUM members nationally to strike for twelve months in the 1984/85 strike, explained how he had been a Labour Party activist for many years but had recently left in disgust and that he wanted to join the Socialist Party – which he did after the meeting.
This is our greatest opportunity so far to get the name of TUSC against cuts firmly in the minds of working class people. We are pushing every Socialist Party member and other activists to be on the street knocking on doors and speaking to people. We have an excellent record of fighting for the rights of people in our area, so we'll be telling them about the campaigning stalls we have done, about the council lobbies and the marches we have organised. We will make it clear that that we don’t just show our faces at election time but that we are campaigning every week.
Mandy
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Election Campaign latest
- Mohammed Pervez - Labour's Council leader
- Andy Bentley - TUSC candidate in Meir North
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Liat Norris- TUSC candidate for Hanley Park & Shelton
Through the two colleges and the university, students make up a large number of the residents in Shelton and use the area daily. It is important that these students have a voice both in the ward and on the council. So if elected, along with working with the local community, I will make sure to work with the various Students' Unions to ensure that all parts of the community are represented and to make sure that the experiences of students in the area is a positive one.
Government and council cuts must be opposed
Students nationally have shown opposition to the cuts being made both in education and wider public services through the student demonstrations at the end of last year; however there has also been student opposition to cuts locally. Whenever North Staffs Against Cuts has organised a protest against the cuts; I, alongside other officers at Staffordshire University Students' Union, have rallied students, from both the university and the colleges, to come down to oppose the attacks on public services being spinelessly passed through by the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem cuts coalition.
A quarter of Staffs University students come from North Staffordshire and others live here for only three years but they all care about the attacks being made to the local community, and I want to give them an opportunity to vote for someone who will fight the attacks – to provide an alternative to the pro-cuts platform being put forward by the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem candidates also asking for your votes in Shelton.
We need councillors who will fight against the cuts
If elected, as with all other Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts candidates, I will vote against all cuts being passed on by the government, and will propose an alternative needs budget, based on the needs of the people of Stoke-on-Trent, rather than accepting the draconian austerity measures being forced on us by the government.
From threatening the closure of Thomas Boughey Children's Centre (the Children's Centres which Labour laughably claim to have saved despite both putting them under threat and cutting their funding by £2.25 million), closing the vital Shelton Pool, to allowing the lifeline that is EMA to be removed from working class youth in the city – the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem cuts coalition has passed on disgraceful attacks to our public services. This can't be allowed to continue, and if elected I will vote against them and fight to defend people in Shelton and across the city from further attacks.
On the 5th May in this ward there is a clear choice – to vote for the three pro-cuts parties; or vote against cuts by voting for the Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Andy Bentley- TUSC candidate for Meir North
People in Meir and elsewhere face the most savage attacks in living memory on our jobs, services, pay and conditions at work, pensions and benefits. The NHS, Royal Mail and other services are lined up for privatisation. A generation of young people face a nightmare future - forced to 'choose' between a lifetime of university debt or a low paid temporary job.
But why should we have to pay for economic crisis and massive debt created by big business, top bankers and successive governments. Why should we pay when bankers still pay themselves massive bonuses and big companies continue to rake in enormous profits.
We say make the rich pay instead. The richest one thousand people have a staggering £350 billion! We demand collection of the £120 billion Corporation Tax which is unpaid every year by big companies.
We say NO to the savage cuts supported by the Tories, Lib Dems, Labour Party and implemented by councils across Britain. We do not accept the lame argument of Stoke-on-Trent councillors that, “There is nothing we can do to stop government cuts”.
If elected I, as a Socialist Party member, and other TUSC councillors, will oppose all cuts. We have already heard the argument locally, “if we keep this swimming pool open we must close that children's centre”. That's why it's important we oppose ALL cuts to prevent government and local councils dividing opposition by trying to play off one campaigning group against another.
If elected we will oppose the cosy Labour, Tory, Lib-Dem and Independents Cuts Coalition which has run Stoke-on-Trent for years. Instead of sitting in rooms with these Cuts Councillors planning which jobs we can scrap and which services we can cut, close or privatise we will actively help to build the massive opposition to government cuts which is necessary.
We will propose a no cuts budget based on the NEEDS of Stoke-on-Trent people not what government ministers and local councillors think they can get away with. Liverpool city council did this in the 1980's and won £60 million back from Margaret Thatcher's government.
These local elections are more important than any in living memory. Firstly because we have to end this cycle of cuts, cuts and more cuts. Secondly because all those elected will be councillors for FOUR years. Stoke-on-Trent can't afford FOUR MORE YEARS OF CUTS.
In February all Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and some independent Stoke-on-Trent councillors voted for savage budget cuts of £36 million. Other councillors who didn't including BNP and Community Voice, proposed no alternative which effectively means they supported the cuts anyway.
On 5 May make sure you make the right choice. You can vote either for candidates who will carry out cuts or you can vote for Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition candidates who will fight AGAINST all cuts.
originally posted up at PitsNPots
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Matt Wright- TUSC candidate for Dresden & Florence

Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Election Rally!
Childrens Centres Saved by the “Save our Children’s Centres” campaigners not the Labour Party!
The Labour Party are delivering leaflets all over Stoke-on-Trent claiming that they “Saved Children’s Centres”. If Labour was a private company peddling this rubbish they could get done under the Trades Description Act!
Cuts proposed by the Labour, Tory, Lib-Dem and Independents Cuts Coalition in November 2010 included shutting “seven of the city’s 16 children’s centres” (Sentinel 2 Novenber 2010).
Labour councillors were not even prepared to name those that they had put under threat in this way which resulted in panic in ALL sixteen.
Children’s centres have been saved, for now, not by Labour but by the marvellous campaign of opposition which was organised by parents and supporters of the children’s centres.
Save our Children’s Centres campaigners protesting outside a City Council meeting
In reality, Labour and the rest of the Cuts Coalition were forced to back down for fear of losing their seats at the local elections on 5 May. That’s why they are now trying to rewrite history by claiming to have saved them.
What Labour and the Cuts Coalition councillors are also conveniently not telling voters across the city is that their ‘saving children’s centres’ includes significant cuts of £2.25 million to the children’s centres funding which is equivalent to 23 staff being sacked!
Don’t be fooled – these people, fresh from slashing jobs & services by £36 million, are looking for you to re-elect them again on 5 May.
If they get re-elected they will be in place for FOUR years. WE cant afford FOUR more years of Cuts or ‘savings’ as Labour councillors like to call them.
WE need councillors who are against cuts, who will fight against the government for more money to save our jobs and services not spend their time passing on cuts to ordinary working class people across Stoke-on-Trent.
Stoke Socialist Party is part of the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition and is calling for a vote for TUSC candidates across Stoke-on-Trent in the local election on 5 May
VOTE FOR “TUSC AGAINST CUTS” ON 5 MAY
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Breathtaking Arrogance of Stoke-on-Trent's own Cuts Coalition!
This 'Labour' leader as part of an unholy coalition with Tories, Lib Dems and Independents has just imposed £35.6 million worth of cuts to our jobs and services and he thinks that we should all be overjoyed that, “this is not the end of the city council”. Does he actually think that we want more of this crap?
He shows not an ounce of concern about the devastating effects on thousands of local people as they slash 800 job losses, close 2 swimming pools, 2 libraries, and the City Farm with Children's Centre's funding slashed and 200 more individual cuts.
Not to be out done, Mohammed Pervez's partner in crime, Tory leader Ross Irving weighs in with, “A lot of people will say all we have delivered is cuts”. Too right they will - mainly because that is exactly what they have done!
These 'peoples representatives' are not prepared to fight against the government's cuts in funding but when it comes to ordinary working class people in Stoke-on-Trent they are only too willing to work “very hard” to carry out what is effectively anti-social behaviour of a mass character by trashing much needed jobs and services.
Lets hope that the local elections on 5 May WILL see the end of this city council and more importantly the election of councillors who are prepared to fight AGAINST government cuts and FOR the people of Stoke-on-Trent.
The Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) are standing ANTI-CUTS CANDIDATES across Stoke-on-Trent on 5 May. If you want councillors who will put ordinary working class people first and fight against the government's cuts then make sure you
VOTE FOR TRADE UNIONISTS AND SOCIALIST AGAINST CUTS