Solidarity 168, 5 March 2010

Peckham and Camberwell: campaigning on the Aylesbury Estate

AWL supporter Jill Mountford is the AWL’s candidate in the general election, standing in Peckham and Camberwell against Labour’s Harriet Harman. Peckham is a deprived area in South East London, with high levels of unemployment and poverty. At the centre of the constituency is the Aylesbury estate, home to 8,500 people. The estate gets a lot of bad press, being described by the Daily Mail as “Hell’s waiting room”. Two weeks ago the AWL held an election meeting on the estate. And we found that the people that live there generally feel very differently to the Mail. The homes on the Aylesbury are...

The left and the labour movement in the General Election

How should the working-class left respond to the general election and the cuts that will inevitably follow, whichever party wins? Solidarity spoke to a range of activists (all in a personal capacity) from across the left. We will continue the discussion in future issues.

For a public, democratically-controlled banking system!

In the minds of perhaps most workers in Britain, there is nothing that better exemplifies the grotesque inequality at the very core of the way our society is organised than the obscene and ongoing scandal of bankers’ bonuses. Despite leading the world to near economic collapse and bringing about a situation in which millions of people’s livelihoods were threatened through their profligacy and blind faith in the anarchic, chaotic whims of the market, bankers and city financiers across the world are still pocketing massive bonuses on top of their already massive “wages.” Despite small New Labour...

Workers news of the world

Barbara E, known as “Emmely”, worked for Kaisers supermarket chain in Germany for 31 years. The company say she had set aside €1.30 worth of bottle deposits for herself, and that these deposit slips were the property of a customer. The suspicion was never proved, but still Emmely was sacked in February 2008. A few weeks before, Emmely was involved in an 18-month-long national strike. She organised the strike in her shop for the service union Verdi and she had been warned by workmates that she was on the black list. Her case will be heard at the highest labour court in Germany on 10 June. The...

Italy: more lies, scandals...and prosecutions?

At the end of February Italy’s Corte di Cassazione — a cross between a Court of Appeal and a Supreme Court — upheld the conviction of British lawyer David Mills for having accepted bribes from Silvio Berlusconi. However, as a result of one of the umpteen ad personam laws passed by Berlusconi to keep him out of jail, the Mills case was “prescripted” — its range of executive action to carry out any sentence ran out of time. Mills avoided going to prison for the four and a half years imposed on him at his original trial. But the Berlusconi camp may not yet be out of the hot water. Predictably...

NHS "right to request": privatisation by another name

Probably the most insidious threat facing the National Health Service is the “right to request”. Enshrined in the High Quality Care For All: NHS Next Stage Review Final Report of June 2008, it allows groups of frontline health professionals “the freedom to use their talents to find innovative ways to improve quality of care for patients” — by taking their services out of the NHS. We are now seeing the effects of that reform in Kingston, south London. The “right to request” is a development of the Thatcher government's internal market. Primary care trusts (PCTs) are now supposed to separate...

NHS cuts: 12 London hospitals face the axe

In a report commissioned by the British Medical Association, John Lister of London Health Emergency has done vital work in exposing the shady plans to dismantle London’s NHS. Lister paints a picture of the future of London’s health service that can only be described as catastrophic. The BMA is now mobilising its membership to build and get involved in campaigns with other healthworkers, patients and members of the community — to save the NHS. It is a massive indictment of the trade union movement, and specifically the healthworkers’ union Unison, that the six-figure salaried medics have raised...

Haiti solidarity

No Sweat activists met in London for a forum on Haiti to follow up the massively successful music and comedy benefit which raised over £1,000 for Haitian workers' organisation Batay Ouvriye. The meeting heard from Andy Taylor of the Haiti Support Group, who gave an inspiring account of how grassroots organisations in Haiti have tried to pick themselves up and continue organising after the devastating earthquake. He explained how the hyper-exploitative sweatshop capitalism operating in Haiti directly worsened the impact of the earthquake; 500 workers in a single factory were killed because...

My life at work: always understaffed

Eleanor Daltrey is a healthcare assistant in south London. Tell us a little bit about the work you do. I work as a healthcare assistant on an inpatient psychosis unit. We work shifts, and most of the time is spent on the ward interacting with service users and doing thinks like changing beds, taking physical observations and helping with medication or running service user groups for relaxation, music or art. I also accompany service users in the community, for shopping or appointments. Do you and your workmates get the pay and conditions you deserve? Pay and conditions are okay. There are...

College cuts: "we should focus on what unites us"

My college is facing £2.5 million worth of cuts, which would critically damage our capacity to provide decent education for our community. Now the UCU (University and College Union) branch has voted unanimously to ballot for strike action in the event of compulsory redundancies. I’m Branch Secretary of the UCU at our college where the local MP is David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education. He embodies the complete failure of the Labour Party to represent ordinary people, in education and across public services, and so as part of our campaign I’m standing against him in the General Election on...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.