Click on the link below for a video from the Committee for a Workers International Summer School

On Wednesday 14 July North Staffs TUC agreed to organise an anti-cuts public meeting after it was suggested by Socialist Party members.  The aim of this important public meeting on 18 August will be to launch a united Anti-Cuts campaign to fight against all cuts that the Con-Dem Coalition government and local councils are trying to impose against the will of the majority of ordinary working class people.

Socialist Party Organiser, Andy Bentley, told the TUC meeting how,

“Stoke Socialist Party members have already done over 30 campaigning stalls over the last eight weeks in Hanley, Longton, Shelton, Crewe and Stafford building support for an organised and united fightback against all the planned cuts to jobs, public services, benefits and pensions. On these stalls we have spoken to more than 3000 people extremely angry at the cuts – including young people, pensioners, workers and the unemployed. Most agreed with us that we need a massive campaign including public meetings, marches, demonstrations and strike action where necessary to stop the cuts”

One of the most important roles of these campaigning stalls is to explain to people that, despite what politicians, top bankers, bosses and the mass media tell us, there is an alternative to THEIR aim of making the working class pay for a crisis THEY have created.

 The Socialist Party says, make the rich pay instead!

 Last year, in a period of recession where hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs, the richest 1000 people in Britain INCREASED their wealth by a staggering £77 billion. They now have £340 billion in total stashed away and are still raking it in!

 The Socialist Party says, build a massive campaign of opposition to force the government to stop these savage cuts!

 ORGANISE TO DEFEND OUR JOBS & PUBLIC SERVICES!

COME ALONG TO THE

NORTH STAFFS TUC PUBLIC MEETING

 WEDNESDAY 18 AUGUST – 7pm

HOPE CENTRE, GARTH STREET, HANLEY

STOKE-ON-TRENT ST1  2DA

ALL WELCOME

PLEASE CALL  07845893607  FOR MORE INFORMATION

Yesterday’s Anti-Cuts protest was well supported by people in Hanley. Hundreds signed our petition against the cuts and calling for a trade union organised national demonstration.

This protest was jointly organised by Youth Fight for Jobs, National Shop Stewards Network and Stoke Socialist Party. We were also joined by representatives from the Telecoms section of the Communications Workers Union. The protest formed part of a week long series of similar protests, marches, public meetings etc across Britain and Europe.

Interviewed live on Radio Stoke Socialist Party Organiser Andy Bentley said, “Why should working class people pay for a crisis created by top bankers, big business and governments. Last year the richest 1000 people in Britain increased their wealth by a staggering £77 billion so make the rich pay instead.” We also got a brief report in the Sentinel.

“Why should we pay for a crisis created by governments and millionaires” a young worker told us in Longton. While the richest 1000 people increased their wealth last year by £77 billion this lad has just been told he will be sacked in three weeks time.

One woman told us how she was sacked last week after 38 years working for Wedgwood. Experts now say that the Con-Dem savage cuts programme will destroy another three quarters of a million jobs. This is why the Socialist Party is determined to help build a massive movement of opposition to these slash & burn policies.

Socialist Party Campaigning stall in Longton

We have already visited Longton, Hanley and Shelton with our campaigning stall. Over 1000 across the city have now signed our petition. We have held a public meeting in Hanley to plan how to fight against the cuts and are helping to organise a protest next Tuesday 22 June in Hanley at the Stanley Matthews Statue at 12 noon. This protest will form part of European wide protests over the next week against cuts.

In order to force the government to back down it will need a massive movement of ordinary working class people. The Socialist Party will do all it can to help build such a force.

If you want to help please get in touch by calling 07845893607

Build a mass campaign against academies

Tory Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is rushing an Academies Bill through parliament. Around 600 secondary and 2,000 primary schools found ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted are being invited to fast track to academy status. Gove hopes that eventually all schools will become academies. This spells disaster for comprehensive education.

If the government is so convinced this is a good idea, why is it removing any opportunity for parents, teachers or the local authority to have their say? Once a head teacher registers ‘interest’ in becoming an academy, the decision will be made on the basis of a simple majority vote by school governors. The schools are not theirs to give away.

Such is the speed of the process that some schools could be academies by September. Students and parents could find that the schools they have enrolled in are not what they expected. This is completely undemocratic.

This is the road to a two-tier education system. Academies can be selective so they can pick and choose who they want to teach. This will tend to be those who need least support and so will be the ‘cheapest’ to teach. Students who are excluded by an academy’s selection policy could end up in schools that are starved of cash.

This means the end of the state education system as we know it. Academies will be a law unto themselves. The academy sponsors or governors will decide what gets taught, who gets taught, who teaches, what they earn, and other crucial decisions that parents, teachers and local authorities will be locked out of.

Education will be stolen from national and local public control and handed to big business and charities. Individual academies will potentially be swallowed up by education profiteers to be run as chains of privatised schools.

Academies are not covered by general education law which means that their students, parents and teachers have fewer rights than those of schools in the comprehensive sector.

By dividing schools among different academy managers, national pay and conditions arrangements will be torn apart. This could entail Saturday work, and other changes to the work of teachers and school staff.

Past campaigns have shown that action by parents, teachers and students can disrupt these plans – don’t let education be put at risk.

The government is acting fast. We must also respond quickly.

Parents and teachers should organise lobbies of school governors’ meetings immediately. Contact your school to find out when the next meeting is and get the contact details for the governors to register your opposition with them.

Parent Action Groups are needed on a borough-wide and school by school basis. Pass around a petition among parents to hand into the head teacher to show opposition.

Organise school gate and other local meetings to initiate a campaign and to inform other parents about the dangers posed by a transfer out of the Local Education Authority.

All those who oppose this stealing of our schools from local communities should join the protests on budget day, 22 June, when the government will announce cuts that will affect ‘every one’ of us.

Let teachers know that you would support them balloting for strike action to stop state education being dismantled. If you are a teacher get in touch with your union immediately to register your support for action against Gove’s plans.

Socialist Party Campaign against the governments cuts 
 
* OVER 1000 PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY SIGNED OUR PETITION AGAINST THESE CUTS – over the last week our campaigning stall has visited Hanley and Longton. We will be visiting a town near you very soon! During the last week anger has definitely increased as people begin to realise the extent of the cuts that are being planned
 
* YOUTH FIGHT FOR JOBS & NATIONAL SHOP STEWARDS NETWORK ARE JOINTLY ORGANISING A PROTEST IN HANLEY ON TUESDAY 22 JUNE AT 12 NOON AT STANLEY MATTHEWS STATUE. This protest will take place on the day of the Tory-LibDem emergency budget. It is part of protests taking place across Europe.
 
* SOCIALIST PARTY PUBLIC MEETING TUESDAY 15 JUNE – 7.30pm AT THE HOPE CENTRE ON THE CORNER OF HUNTBACH ST AND GARNER ST IN HANLEY – This will be the next important stage locally in this campaign which is now underway across Britain.
 
The government, big business interests and top bankers want ordinary people to pay for a crisis they have created. They tell us there is no alternative. We disagree! We also think that a massive campaign can be built that can force these people to back down.

• OUR PUBLIC MEETING WILL BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE TO DISCUSS & PLAN OUT HOW WE CAN BUILD SUCH A CAMPAIGN! 

• DON’T JUST GET ANGRY – GET ORGANISED!

• WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AT THE HOPE CENTRE ON TUESDAY 15 JUNE AT 7.30pm!
  

“Inevitably, painful times lie ahead for everyone”. These are the words of David Cameron yesterday but they are lies!

 There WILL be painful times ahead for working and middle class people but not for the millionaires and billionaires who run Britain or the government ministers ruling in their interests!

These people want us to pay for a crisis they have created! Their slash & burn cuts will include; 

• Up to half a million more workers thrown on the scrapheap of unemployment!

• The pay of millions frozen or cut!

• Pensions cut!

• Tax increases!

• More privatisation!

• Cuts in benefits!

• A lost generation of young people scramblimg to find a decent job!

We are also being ConDemned to an avalanche of propaganda to convince us that ‘there is no alternative to these cuts’. We disagree!

We say …………………………… 

• End our wars in Iraq & Afghanistan to save around £4.5 billion a year.

• Take back the £60 billion paid to top bankers over the last few years.

• Employ more tax inspectors to stop the £100 billion that is shipped out of Britain every year because big business companies pay little or no corporation tax.

• Why not take back into public ownership the privatised services so that they can be used to save jobs and for the benefit of all not for the profits of a few.

We do not think that working and middle class people should have to pay for an economic crisis created by top bankers, big business and their governments.

We want no part of Cameron’s sham ‘consultation’. Our consultation started two weeks ago. Over one thousand people in Stoke-on-Trent have already signed our petition against the ConDem cuts!

A mass movement of the working class and middle class can stop their plans but we need to organise and unite our opposition.

At the public meeting taking place on Tuesday 15 June we will discuss & plan the best way to organise a united fight back. Your input is greatly valued. Please do your best to come along!

Tuesday 15 June – 7.30pm

HOPE CENTRE, CORNER OF GARTH STREET & HUNTBACH STREET, HANLEY

FOR MORE INFO PLEASE CALL 07845893607

Public Meeting

“PREPARE FOR THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES - 

IT’S US OR THEM!”

Tuesday 15th June – 7.30pm

Hope Centre, Garth Street, Hanley ST1 2DA

* * * All Welcome * * *

Millionaire ministers plan to butcher public services

Unite to fight the cuts

Axe

Judy Beishon

Then later this year the slaughter is to be massively stepped up. Lib Dem millionaire Treasury minister and former banker David Laws has declared he will make “aggressive cuts” in an “age of austerity” to reduce the £156 billion budget deficit. These much bigger cuts packages will be announced on budget day – 22 June, and then in the autumn, when cuts for the next three years will be announced.

The first £6 billion includes a further assault on local authorities which is likely to hit residential and home care for the elderly, libraries, leisure schemes, school transport and many other services.

‘£6 billion found, just £150 billion to go’, quipped one journalist. The next rounds of cuts, to reduce the deficit by about a third, are predicted to take public sector job losses up to half a million, cut some parts of the public sector by 25% and possibly increase VAT, which would hit the poor proportionately much harder than the rich.

Working class people are already suffering from rising inflation – it was at a 19 year high of 5.3% in March. Inflation and a VAT increase combined, when pay levels are being held down and even cut for some workers, would take a terrible toll on living standards.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg had the nerve to urge people to spare judgment until the end of the government’s five year term. How can workers who are thrown into poverty, losing their jobs and maybe their homes “spare judgment”? Or young people who can’t get a job or a university place?

Public services executioner David Laws said he hasn’t yet worked out if he’s in a dream or a nightmare. The task of the trade union movement, together with community organisations, pensioners groups etc, must be to make sure it’s a nightmare for him and the rest of his jobs and service-slashing brigade, by launching the biggest ever anti-cuts movement. Because if it’s not a nightmare for him, it will certainly be one for us. That is a prospect that must be fought against with the collective strength of anti-cuts campaigns and the seven million strong trade union movement, backed up by the wider working class

EMERGENCY BUDGET DAY – TUESDAY 22 JUNE 

NO TO TORY-LIB DEM CUTS!

JOIN THE PROTEST

NO TO TORY – LIB DEM CUTS!!!

DEFEND OUR JOBS & SERVICES FROM THE AXE!!!

MARKET SQUARE, HANLEY – 12 noon

SIMILAR PROTESTS WILL BE TAKING PLACE ACROSS EUROPE!!!

SEE STATEMENT BELOW

Initiative for a week of European-wide protests

ON THE initiative of Socialist Party (Ireland) MEP Joe Higgins, an appeal letter (extract below) has been issued by members of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament to the trade union and labour movement throughout Europe, to coordinate protests against government austerity cuts during the week of 21 to 26 June.

Dear friends,

It is clear that the massive financial package agreed at the weekend (by EU ministers on 8/9 May) will only increase the pace of attacks on working people, young people and pensioners that is taking place across Europe.

At this stage, Greek workers, in particular are in the front line of these attacks. They face a 10% cut in wages and spending in the public sector, an increased retirement age, VAT increases and the freezing of pensions. But workers in Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy have also faced and continue to face severe attacks on their living standards.

It is also clear that these attacks will not be confined to workers in the so-called “peripheral” European economies – workers in all of the countries across Europe are set to have pension rights further eroded, downward pressure on wages, cutbacks in social services and social welfare as well as the continuation of large-scale unemployment.

These attacks are also combined with a poisonous attempt to divide workers along national lines. This has been particularly evident in the media in Germany and many other countries. Lies about the conditions of workers in Greece are spread to create the impression that ordinary Greeks are responsible for the crisis in their country and must pay the price.

For example, contrary to the myth of lazy Greek workers retiring early, the average retirement age in Greece is 61.4 years, higher than the European average!

The Greek workers have demonstrated a heroic willingness to struggle against these attacks in the last weeks. Portuguese and Spanish workers have indicated the same willingness to fight.

We now feel that there is a need for an active joint response across Europe – to cut across the attempts to divide workers and to give people confidence to fight back. We propose to initiate a ‘week of protest and solidarity’ for the 21 to 26 June. What we envisage is political parties, trade unions, social movements and activists coming together and discussing holding a major protest in their country in that week.

The purpose is to proclaim that Left and social organisations reject the policy that it is working people who must pay for the crisis, that we demand an end to the dictatorship of the markets, demand that the financial institutions are taken into public ownership and we declare that European workers stand together in solidarity.

We understand of course that the details and precise slogans will have to be worked out to take into account the political situation in the country where the protests take place. However, we propose that the following basic demands could form the basis of the discussion across Europe:

• Workers must not pay for the crisis – Make the super rich and bankers pay.
• Solidarity with Greek workers and for the unity of working people across Europe.
• No to cutbacks, wage cuts, unemployment & increases in the retirement age.
• No to privatisation of public services.
• End the dictatorship of the financial markets, credit ratings institutions and the IMF.
• Stop the bailouts of the banks – nationalise the banks and financial institutions in the interests of working people.

We feel that successful co-ordinated protests in the week of 21 to 26 June would have a major impact and send a clear message to the European establishments. It would assist the struggles of workers in the various European countries and be a vital step in building a European-wide resistance to the ongoing neo-liberal agenda.

Yours in solidarity,

MEPs Joe Higgins (Socialist Party – Ireland),

Nikolaos Chountis (Syriza – Greece),

Søren Bo Søndergaard (Folkebevægelsen mod EU – Denmark),

Eva-Britt Svensson (Left Party – Sweden),

Kyriacos Triantaphyllides (AKEL – Cyprus),

Marisa Matias (Bloco de Esquerda – Portugal),

Miguel Portas (Bloco de Esquerda – Portugal),

Rui Tavares (Bloco de Esquerda – Portugal),

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Député Front de Gauche).

FOR A VIDEO OF THE 5 MAY GENERAL STRIKE IN GREECE CLICK ON LINK BELOW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bowEordgqHs&feature=related