Archive for July 2020
1 July 2020
The NSSN Conference is a vital forum for trade unionists to come together to discuss our experiences during these crisis-ridden times, and forge a strategy that protects our safety in the workplace, and defends our jobs and income.
1 July 2020
Boris Johnson has attempted to grab the headlines by bigging up his government's £5 billion post-pandemic spending programme on schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
1 July 2020
Benefits system being used to force return to unsafe workplaces
As previously reported in the Socialist, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which oversees the payment of unemployment benefit to millions, had previously eased the requirements for claiming Universal Credit
1 July 2020
Sunday trading: Government blinks first
Leaked reports emerged in mid-June that the government was looking at relaxing Sunday trading legislation for a year
1 July 2020
Workers at Tower Hamlets Labour-run council in east London are set to strike on 3, 6, 7 July against management plans to 'sack and re-engage' its entire workforce, in order to force them to accept worse terms and conditions.
1 July 2020
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and private cleaning company OCS have been accused of ignoring demands to investigate a coronavirus outbreak among workers after four cleaners fell sick with suspected Covid-19
1 July 2020
From slavery to Black Lives Matter - racism and capitalist injustice exposed
TV review: 13th: I was encouraged to watch this documentary by my daughter who has recently been motivated to go to her first protest, the Black Lives Matter demos against racism.
1 July 2020
On 25 June, Google announced a "new licencing programme to support the news industry". The programme pays publishers for high-quality content in an effort to remove paywalls. A "new news experience"
1 July 2020
Are you considering taking a long-delayed holiday? Try the pacific islands of Fiji. In an enticing tweet, the country's prime minister says: "Say you're a billionaire looking to fly your own jet, rent
1 July 2020
The Socialist Party returned to campaigning for the second week on June 27. We set up two stalls, one on building a movement to smash racism, the other focused on other issues that are affecting young
1 July 2020
Cardiff community fights nursery closure: Council must step in
The Little Fishes nursery has served the St Mellons community from the church premises for 30 years.
1 July 2020
I left Labour and want to end capitalism - join us in Socialist Party
I feel fortunate to have been raised by socialist parents. In my house in the 1990s and 2000s, Blair was as dirty a name as Thatcher.
1 July 2020
Capitalism and corruption go hand in hand
Can a leopard change its spots? Can a Tory MP stop taking cash for favours?
1 July 2020
75th anniversary of the Attlee Labour government
The end of World War Two left behind a world in upheaval. Demobilised troops and a war-weary population demanded a better future. Resistance movements in Europe published programmes demanding nationalisation.
1 July 2020
Equity union president elections
Performing arts union Equity is electing its president and ruling council this summer, at the same time that industry leaders are warning of widespread and imminent collapse.
1 July 2020
Trade unionists stand in solidarity with Maxine Peake
Trade unionists, including fellow members of Equity, are outraged at the completely false smears aimed at our fellow member Maxine Peake
1 July 2020
A socialist NHS fit for heroes
The past months have felt like war - normal life shut down; Covid-19 casualty reports; widespread anxiety, insecurity and hardship; frontline workers cheered for their heroic efforts.
1 July 2020
Workers need a new mass party to defend their interests
Starmer seized the chance to sack Long-Bailey and step up the campaign to falsely argue that antisemitism is prevalent on the left
1 July 2020
Tories put profit before lives
Government failures fan Covid:
Once again, this incompetent Tory government, intent on pursuing its pro-big business agenda of prematurely ending the pandemic lockdown, has put lives at risk.
1 July 2020
Leeds City Council in danger of bankruptcy
The Covid-19 crisis has pushed councils up and down the country into a new financial crisis.
1 July 2020
Plastic waste pollution is one of the biggest challenges facing society. So why the lack of enthusiasm by the government to curb manufacturing practices that generate tonnes of it which leech into the air, waterways, oceans and food?
1 July 2020
On the day of his funeral, Socialist Party members, neighbours and family lined the street of Socialist Party executive committee member Ken Douglas
1 July 2020
BLM has not stopped - protesters flock to Socialists
Socialist Party members have continued to be out supporting Black Lives Matter protests
1 July 2020
Change in leadership needed to secure union's future
The PCS general secretary has said the union needs to restructure and cut staff or merge.
1 July 2020
The Sunday Times reported that Johnson intends to dump plans to improve trans people's rights to self-identify
1 July 2020
Tory full return to school plans gamble with lives
The government's plans for a full return in September make crystal clear it has no interest in safety or genuine education needs.
1 July 2020
Fighting Fund: Target smashed by half time
"The sinews of war", a cynical Roman statesman famously observed, is "abundant money". That we don't have.
7 July 2020
Bangladesh: Stop closure and privatisation of Jute Mills
A solidarity statement initiated by east London members of the CWI
8 July 2020
£1,600 less benefits if your job goes - while super-rich splash cash
Households suffering unemployment during the pandemic will get £1,600 per year less in benefits than in 2011
8 July 2020
Testing: Tories' £5bn gift to private sector
Never mind expanding NHS labs or building new public science facilities. The Tories want their mates in big business to mop up from the social necessity of mass corona testing.
8 July 2020
Poverty rises again - especially for BAME workers
100,000 more people fell into poverty in 2018-19, reports the Social Metrics Commission. Black, Asian and minority ethnic households were more than twice as likely to have been pushed below the breadline.
8 July 2020
Homerton hospital workers deserve equal pay and conditions
Management at Homerton Hospital in Hackney, east London, has outraged staff by insisting that outsourcing and inferior pay and conditions for ancillary workers will go on
8 July 2020
8 July 2020
Jobcentre reopening: only union struggle will put safety first
Jobcentres have become the latest battleground between workers' desire to work in safety and employers' desire to reopen services, ready or not.
8 July 2020
Tower Hamlets council workers strike against wholesale attack on terms and conditions
Council workers across all services in Tower Hamlets, east London, have been on strike against attacks on their terms and conditions.
8 July 2020
Nottingham unions fight council job cuts
Local councils are facing huge financial crises due to Covid-19, on top of government funding cuts since 2010.
8 July 2020
Send your news, views and criticism in not more than 150 words to Socialist Postbox, PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD, phone 020 8988 8771 or email [email protected]
8 July 2020
No going back: Nationalise social care!
The anarchy of free-market capitalism has been brutally exposed to millions through its inability to combat the Covid-19 pandemic in the richest countries on the planet.
8 July 2020
Books that inspired me: The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin's 'The fire next time' is a series of short essays describing the author's experiences of being black in America in the 1950s and 60s
8 July 2020
The best place to start - join the Socialist Party
I joined the Labour Party, like many people, in the surge of support that grew around Jeremy Corbyn. Finally! Someone who is saying what we all can see.
8 July 2020
Trans rights protests oppose Tory backsliding
Well over a thousand overwhelmingly young trans and non-binary people and supporters protested in Parliament Square on 4 July against the Tories backsliding on trans rights.
8 July 2020
Black Lives Matter - the fight is not over
Hundreds gathered for a Black Lives Matter protest on 5 July. Given it was the anniversary of the opening of the NHS, the protest started with a round of applause for the NHS, and all the healthcare workers
8 July 2020
Tory chancellor Rishi Sunak promised us all that the government would give the NHS "whatever it needs." Now he's refusing to stump up the cash.
8 July 2020
£3bn green pledge: not enough for climate or jobs
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised £3 billion of green investment. Goals include 'decarbonising' public buildings, insulating private homes, and creating work.
8 July 2020
Covid pandemic and Northern Ireland - workers must resist the bosses' offensive
The coronavirus pandemic hit Northern Ireland at the very same time as the political parties in the Assembly (Stormont) were re-establishing a power-sharing Executive for the first time in over three years
8 July 2020
TV: The school that tried to end racism
This series showed an experiment with a group of Year 7 students in a South London school to explore how racism was learnt
8 July 2020
Fantastic virtual NSSN conference: "Fight for our lives and livelihoods''
A virtual meeting of up to 300 trade union reps, workers, campaigners, socialists and international visitors took place on the 4 July
8 July 2020
Hong Kong: The fight for democratic rights
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong on the 23rd anniversary of the settlement between London and Beijing
8 July 2020
No choice but to fight the system
The killing of George Floyd will be fixed into the minds of our generation as we move into a new period
8 July 2020
End the scandal of sweatshop labour
In Leicester Covid-19 is prevalent in areas that have a thriving underworld of sweatshops.
8 July 2020
Johnson blames care workers for deaths
Boris Johnson has tried to shift the blame for the scandal of mass Covid-19 deaths in care homes.
8 July 2020
UCU: election victory for combative rank and file
This was the first contested branch elections in years for Southampton UCU.
8 July 2020
Fight for every job. Fight for socialism
Thousands of jobs already destroyed. Thousands more announced almost every day. The 'job retention scheme' is turning into a jobs haemorrhage as the government starts to wind it down, with a view to scrapping it in October.
As speaker after speaker at the NSSN conference on 4 July said, trade unions must fight every job cut and every pay cut.
13 July 2020
Unison general secretary candidate and Socialist Party member Hugo Pierre, left, supporting a UCU picket line in February 2020
13 July 2020
The National Shop Stewards Network will be lobbying (online) the TUC on Sunday 13th September
13 July 2020
Socialist Party member Hugo Pierre (centre), received the necessary number of nominations to be on the ballot paper for the Unison general secretary election. photo Sarah SE
13 July 2020
Socialism 2020, a socialist forum of discussion & debate, 20-23 November 2020. Click here to book your ticket.
Fighting for over 250 jobs that are under threat at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff
13 July 2020
Swansea university students demanding a fees refund, October 2020
Members of Democratic Socialist Movement in Nigeria (a sister organisation of the Socialist Party in England/Wales) during the current protest movement ()
13 July 2020
Fighting for over 250 jobs that are under threat at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff , photo M Kamish
Fighting for over 250 jobs that are under threat at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff
15 July 2020
Workers and young people need planning for jobs, not handouts for bosses
Like every aspect of the government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Rishi Sunak's "plan for jobs" is more headline than substance, and doomed to fail in its stated aims.
15 July 2020
Sexist dismissal of women's health: NHS needs democratic control
Agonising pain, periods that last for a month, birth defects in every one of their children. These are just some of the serious health issues found by the Cumberlege Inquiry which were dismissed by doctors
15 July 2020
Water shortage warning: nationalise now!
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has expressed concern that parts of England could run out of water within 20 years
15 July 2020
Lockdown Leicester: trade unionists and parents fight for safety
Trade unionists, parents and campaigners across Leicester are organising a campaign to defend safety and workers' rights in the pandemic-hit city.
15 July 2020
Defend free TV licences for pensioners!
The BBC has announced it will be knocking on pensioners' doors to collect £157.50 from 1 August, in pursuance of this Tory government's policy of withdrawing free TV licences for over-75s.
15 July 2020
Ratcliffe rats on Bridgend workers
Mega-corporation Ineos, owned by anti-union, multibillionaire James Ratcliffe, has reneged on its agreed investment in a 500-job 4x4 car plant in Bridgend, south Wales
15 July 2020
A fighting programme for Unite
On 18 July United Left is selecting its candidate for the next Unite general secretary election
15 July 2020
Will boosting the 'black pound' improve black workers' lives?
The response of Haringey's 'Corbynista' council in north London to the mass Black Lives Matter movement has been to promote 'Black Pound Day'
15 July 2020
Nottingham trans rights protest: Our demands are the same as everyone's
'Trans rights are human rights' was one of the chants as 300 trans people and supporters marched from the Forest Recreation Ground to the Old Market Square in Nottingham on 11 July
15 July 2020
Selling the Socialist in Swansea
"It's good to see you back, we need people fighting back". It was encouraging to hear this from one passer-by at the Socialist Party campaign stall on 11 July.
15 July 2020
BLM protests - another injustice exposed
5,000 in Brighton, 1,000 in Bristol, and a march in Stevenage
15 July 2020
Donations help us campaign and fight for socialism
"It's not much, but I hope this helps" wrote F Whittam, sending us £10. It does! It's these small amounts that have helped the Socialist Party break records for our Fighting Fund.
15 July 2020
Why I joined the Socialist Party
Labour is moving away from the ideas that brought me to the party. I joined the Socialists because a choice between Labour and the Conservatives would not bring the revolution that would benefit the majority
15 July 2020
Hillingdon Hospital corona outbreak: workforce not to blame
Government and management attacks and incompetence are the main cause of the spread
15 July 2020
Palace letters show the monarchy is a weapon for capitalism
1975 Australia coup: correspondence with queen released: The crown is a weapon of the ruling class which is usually kept relatively sheathed
15 July 2020
Jobs, homes, services and a future for all!
The BLM protests have lifted the lid on the enormous level of built-up class anger
15 July 2020
Unison members at Tower Hamlets Labour-run council were sacked and re-engaged on worse terms.
15 July 2020
A socialist programme for schools
How schools have been affected by coronavirus, and what kind of future school system we need
15 July 2020
PCS executive majority cancels union democracy
On 8 July, the controlling majority of the PCS union executive committee rejected moves to resume this year's elections
15 July 2020
How capitalist restoration led to war and 'ethnic cleansing' in the Balkans
Srebrenica massacre - 25 years on: 8,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees were slaughtered in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica
15 July 2020
How the FBI and Chicago police murdered a Black Panther
Books that inspired me: Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, deserves wider recognition as a socialist leader for black liberation
15 July 2020
Books that inspired me: The Mother
"Seas of blood won't extinguish the truth": How a working-class Russian woman became a revolutionary socialist
15 July 2020
TV: Ross Kemp - Living with Forced Out Families
Yet another housing scandal: Homeless people are faced with leaving their local area in order to put a roof over their head
20 July 2020
United Left general secretary hustings shows widest debate needed for left in Unite
In the vote following the hustings Steve Turner defeated fellow AGS Howard Beckett by 3 votes.
20 July 2020
Trade unionists and artists stand with Maxine Peake
A call on Maxine's union, Equity, the wider union movement, and the entertainment industry, to support her
22 July 2020
Tories using pandemic to privatise NHS more
Another £3 billion for the NHS to prepare for the coming winter, said the Tory government. NHS England had actually said it needed £10 billion.
22 July 2020
22 July 2020
Nationalise Tata Steel to save jobs
Media reports that Tata Steel in Port Talbot is considering shutting down its two blast furnaces, and replacing them with 'greener' electric arc furnaces, which would require far less workers, have provoked anger and panic among the workforce, steel unions, and local politicians.
22 July 2020
Online rally: Fight the London transport funding cuts!
London is the only economically developed capital in which public transport is not funded by government grants
22 July 2020
Continue the fight to protect safety
As lockdown eases, workers' rights must be defended. Employers have been attacking the health and safety measures won by members and their reps. Employers have raised the number of people allowed in shops
22 July 2020
Housing crisis: what now and after the pandemic?
The government often claims to have housed 90% of homeless people during the pandemic through the 'Everybody In' scheme. Working for a homeless service in Westminster, I know this to be a lie.
22 July 2020
Send us your news, views and criticism, in not more than 150 words, to [email protected] - or if you're not online, PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT.
22 July 2020
I joined the Socialist Party to fight back
Since the coronavirus crisis started, managers at the Sainsbury's where I work have gone on the offensive, handing out disciplinary investigations like confetti
22 July 2020
Angry demonstrations have broken out all over Israel, composed of new young activists.
22 July 2020
Hundreds gathered on College Green on 18 July to protest against the government's most recent proposed attack on the rights of trans people.
22 July 2020
Getting the Socialist over the summer
The Socialist is now entering our summer schedule. This will give our editors a chance to take a well-deserved summer break.
22 July 2020
100 years since the foundation of the Communist Party of Great Britain
World War One - the result of capitalist nations' rivalry - led to the slaughter, on an industrial scale, of the working classes internationally
22 July 2020
To put it in context, the annual budget of NHS England is £134 billion. Management requested an extra £10 billion. The Tory government has pledged just £3 billion.
22 July 2020
Exciting Cuban spy thriller exposes US-sponsored terrorism
Action-packed and exciting, Wasp Network is a spy thriller that tells the story of the 'Cuban Five'
22 July 2020
Debenhams: Fighting closures and redundancies
On 17 July protests were held in London, Leeds, Bradford, Plymouth and Glasgow, organised by Usdaw members and supported by activists from the wider trade union movement.
22 July 2020
Luton Council sunk by airport investment: fight for funding, not speculation!
Labour-controlled Luton agreed drastic cuts to services at a full council meeting on 14 July. These are a direct result of a dramatic decline in dividend payments
22 July 2020
Saving the music industry from pandemic and austerity
"90% of UK venues and festivals face closure" warned a report from the Music Venue Trust in June. Like many other service industries, the live music business has been left on a cliff edge
22 July 2020
Iran: Renewed wave of protests and strikes
A brief attempt to intimidate the thousands of Haft Tappeh sugar cane workers who have been on strike since 14 June (see 'Haft Tappeh sugar cane factory workers return to strike action' on socialistworld.net) was pushed back
22 July 2020
Fight for our livelihoods... Fight for our lives!
The Covid capitalist crisis is hitting the working class hard from all sides. We face a tsunami of job cuts and attacks on living standards.
22 July 2020
Hugely significant council workers' strike continues
On all six sites, workers have received a lot of support and solidarity
22 July 2020
Government action is confused, contradictory, late, and fundamentally flawed.
22 July 2020
The Socialist Party wrote to the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition proposing that discussions begin on contesting the various elections scheduled for May 2021.
22 July 2020
Huawei: what's behind Johnson's u-turn?
World capitalism has a growing polarisation into competing blocs
23 July 2020
Barking: Anger at landlord's inaction after park stabbing
On Saturday 18 July, residents of Barking Riverside estate in east London saw a young man lying prostrate at the back of Playhill park, on the estate, attended by ambulance paramedics.
19 Nov Socialism 2022
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