The growing anger against the Labour government’s handling of the recession is building momentum for protests at the Labour Party conference on 27 September.
The PCS civil service workers’ union and the NUT teachers’ union last week became the latest national unions to back the protests. The lecturers’ UCU and journalists’ NUJ unions are already backing protests on the day.
More than two million people are unemployed in Britain – and the number is rising quickly. Almost a million unemployed people are under 25.
This protest can unite all the strands of the workers movement, anti-war, anti-fascist and anti-privatisation campaigns in a huge outpouring of scorn for the failures of the New Labour party. However, in order to be united against the government's neo-liberal agenda, we have to be there! So it's time to contact people in your network, start arguing about why we need to demonstrate our anger with New Labour, and why we need a political alternative.
Tickets on the ‘Big Red Train’ from London to the march are available for £20 waged (£10 concs). Go to » www.righttowork.org.uk
Around 300 people gathered outside the occupied Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight this evening.
At 6:30 pm this evening the crowd heard the news that the company has applied for a possession order against the occupation. However, the court case is not until next Wednesday, giving extra time to build the campaign further.
The RMT union has come forward to back the occupation and pay the legal bills of the case.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said, “Why is the RMT here? It’s because we won’t walk away from workers whether they are in a union or not.”
Crow compared the Vestas struggle to that of the suffragettes and of Nelson Mandela who had defied the law for their causes. “Who are the real criminals?” he asked. “It’s the crowd that run this place.
The Campaign Against Climate Change has organised a public meeting in solidarity with the Vestas occupation on Friday evening in London, 6pm at the ULU, Malet Street.
Download support materials:
SW leaflet (» www.swp.org.uk/resources/v_leaf200709.pdf)
Collection sheet (» www.swp.org.uk/resources/v_coll200709.pdf)
For too long thousands of jobs have been destroyed without resistance. For too long the issue of unemployment—especially youth unemployment—has been ignored. It is time to organise the fightback. The occupations and campaigns at Visteon, the occupations at Prisme in Dundee and the occupation at Waterford Crystal have changed the atmosphere inside the working class movement.
We desperately need more resistance.
The economic crisis, internationally and domestically, is leading to soaring unemployment, insecurity and devastation of communities.
UK unemployment is well over 2 million and headed sharply upwards. Young people are particularly badly affected. There are already 820,000 unemployed under the age of 25, and 600,000 people leave school this summer. Many will not find jobs.
The government has found hundreds of billions to bailout banks and financial institutions.
But instead of saving jobs, Gordon Brown is pressing ahead with policies that cut them—from Royal Mail to local government to the civil service to the NHS.
Individual unions and the TUC should be leading the fight against job losses by opposing redundancies, resisting closures and demanding a transformation of government policy.
This is a conference to learn from the experience of resistance, encourage more struggles, and bring together trade unionists, the unemployed, school and college leavers.
It’s a chance to increase the pressure on trade union leaders, develop the networks of resistance, and come up with campaigning ideas over the most crucial issue facing workers today.
Make sure you are there, and get your union branch, stewards’ committee, campaign organisation or student union to send delegates.
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