Sussex LRC

(c) Left Futures blog

Much has been written about Nelson Mandela since his death on Thursday 5 December 2013.  Jeremy Corbyn MP gave a wholehearted tribute in the House of Commons and also wrote that honouring Mandela means more than just words:

“Mandela fought an incredible battle against overwhelming odds. He suffered grievously for his principles.  In his memory we have to work to understand colonialism and its influence and, above all, question the power of the global corporations that played along with apartheid and still act in an unaccountable and arrogant way towards the poor all over the world.” (Jeremy Corbyn MP)

Mandela was undoubtedly one of the greatest world leaders of our time, and will be remembered especially by those who campaigned against apartheid.  Many will never forget Mandela’s powerful speech at the Rivonia trial of 1963-64, which gave us possibly his most famous words:

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (Nelson Mandela)

Consequently, some like Suzanne Moore and Seumas Milne have rightly fumed against the hypocrisy of those who aided apartheid now trying to attach themselves to any part of Mandela’s legacy.  Like us, they will not forget the many Tories, like Cameron, who called for Mandela to be hanged and later enjoyed free trips to the apartheid state.  Meanwhile, others have focussed on Mandela’s radical socialist beliefs and solidarity with Cuba, Iraq and Palestine which the mainstream media happily ignores.  Undoubtedly Mandela’s legacy is contested by many parties.

“The baleful grip of neoliberal capitalism, and the growing pressure to break with it, is a challenge that goes far beyond South Africa, of course. But along with the struggle for social justice and national liberation, the right to resist tyranny and occupation, and profound opposition to racism and imperial power, that is part of the real legacy of Nelson Mandela.” (Seumas Milne)

RIP Nelson Mandela 1918-2013 – a leader who will continue to inspire and educate.

Solidarity with Firefighters’ strikes

6pm – 10pm Friday 13 December 2013

6pm – 10pm Saturday 14 December 2013

Support FBU pickets at firestations across Sussex

Defend Firefighters against “No Job, No Pension”

“In a week when the full details of a £7,600 pay rise for MPs — which will also increase their pensions — emerged, firefighters’ anger at the governments unworkable, unaffordable and unfair proposals will be even greater.  No firefighter wants to strike, but we cannot allow the government’s ludicrous proposals — and outright hypocrisy — to stand. We’ll keep on fighting until the government sees sense and comes back to negotiations.”  Matt Wrack, FBU General Secretary

Firefighters have been forced into taking further strike action as the Coalition government hasn’t even bothered to talk to them for nearly two months.   The Coalition and employers are forcing through an increase to firefighters’ retirement age from 55 to 60 – putting both the public and firefighters at increased risk in an emergency, and also leaving any firefighter losing their jobs due to lack of fitness unable to access their pension, leading to a bleak “no job, no pension” prospect for firefighters at the end of dangerous and arduous careers.  Added to this, firefighters are paying ever-increasing pension contributions of £320 or more from an average monthly take home pay of £1,650.  Read more about what this all means for firefighters here.

The dispute is also a protest against cuts to the Fire Service and increasing privatisation.  On Thursday 12 December, it was revealed that East Sussex Fire Authority has drawn-up a budget which will cut spending by almost a fifth over five years.  But Fire Authority members voted exclude the public and the media, so all discussions were behind closed doors.  Only the Labour members voted against this in support of an open discussion.  We strongly suggest that you contact East Sussex Fire Authority Members to register your opposition to these cuts, demand they do the same, and insist that all future discussions are in public.  Also contact your local councillors with the same message.  Even if your councillors are not members of the Fire Authority, they will be members of political parties who are represented there.  These councillors are elected to represent the people of Sussex.  Let’s make sure they do!  The recent floods and the latest serious fire in Brighton are clear examples of why we need to defend our Fire & Rescue Services from further cuts.

Please support firefighters’ picket lines when they strike again from 6pm to 10pm on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 December.  Using these handy FBU templates, please also write to your MP to object to these changes.  The Fire Service is facing huge cuts under the Coalition and Tory Fire Minister Brandon Lewis is pushing a privatisation agenda.  We must stand together with firefighters now to defend our Fire Service. 

Defend the Link campaign meeting

7.30pm, Tuesday 3 December 2013

Speakers: Ian Hodson, National President, BFAWU

Hazel Nolan, Chair, London Young Labour

Community Base, 113 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG

The Labour Party’s trade union link doesn’t need mending – it needs strengthening.  Labour needs to better represent the interests of trade unionists, and Labour MPs and councillors need to be more representative of the population – more real voices from the working class, fewer career politicians who have gone straight from education into politics.

Trades unions play a valuable role in defending and improving people’s living standards,  This must be accepted by Labour’s leaders, not called into question.  Tories and employers attack trades unions because they fear their effectiveness, as was demonstrated by the brilliant victory of BFAWU members whose strike action replaced zero hours contracts with permanent jobs for agency workers at Hovis in Wigan.

This also lies behind media smears of unions and recent Tory attacks on Unite among others.  Currently, the Coalition is seeking to gag and bash trades unions, who will be drowning in red tape under its Lobbying Bill.  This is the time for the Labour Party to be closing ranks and standing united together with the trade union movement, not for constitutional navel-gazing.

The 15 trades unions currently affiliated to the Labour Party

Without a collective link to our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement, the Labour Party will ultimately become a UK version of the American Democratic Party.  The Collins Review is also examining the use of US-style primaries in Labour Party selections and is widely believed to be the first step to Labour openly supporting the unpopular policy of state funding for political parties.  We oppose both and prefer Labour’s current constitution, with the collective representation of the trades unions.   Tell Ray Collins to leave Labour’s trade union link alone!  Come along on Tuesday 3 December to hear more about why, when and how. 

The Defend the Link campaign website has many useful articles and resolutions, including a recommended response to the Collins Review which can be used as a model by all – individual Labour Party or trade union members, Labour Party or trade union branches, and Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs).  Submit the model response to your Branch/CLP as soon as possible and send it to Ray Collins yourself too.  Also please ensure that you have signed the campaign statement by replying to this post.  Then make sure everyone you know  has done the same.  Defend the Link!  It’s what makes Labour the party of labour.

Ed Miliband should focus on Tory funding & leave Labour’s union link alone

Unite in Health public fringe

6.30pm, Wednesday 13 November 2013

Sandringham Suite, Hilton Metropole Hotel

Kings Road (seafront), Brighton BN1 2FU

The NHS is everybody’s issue. We pay for it, we built it, we own it, we work in it, we want it when we are sick and unless we fight for it, we will lose it.

Since the change in the Westminster government, there has been an onslaught of attacks on our NHS.  A programme of mass privatisation and cuts is now being seen across the NHS in England.  Under compulsory competitive tendering, all services are now open to bids from the private sector.  As a result, 80% of the NHS is going to the private sector.

Cuts in funding are also having a devastating impact on services– destabilising hospitals and forcing reorganisations, closing A&E units and other services, and putting patients at risk.  Staff have had their pay and conditions slashed by up to a third, with more cuts announced.

Unite is fighting back against cuts to services, staff and patients.  Come to this Unite fringe meeting and hear the real story of what is happening to our NHS, and how you can help to save it.

Chaired by Ian Evans – Unite SE Health RISC, other speakers include: Rob Galloway, Frank Wood – Unite EC member for Health, Debbie Wilkinson – Unite representative at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Nancy Platts – Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown & Peacehaven, Rachael Maskell – Unite Head of Health, and Barrie Brown – Unite National Officer for Health.

As Bevan said, the NHS “will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”.  Now is the time for us all – patients, staff, taxpayers – to stand together to fight to save our NHS.

Solidarity with Firefighters “Brandon Lewis” strike

10am – 2pm Wednesday 13 November 2013

Support FBU pickets at firestations across Sussex

Defend Firefighters against “No Job, No Pension”

Behaving like the worst kind of employer, Tory Fire Minister Brandon Lewis has worsened the insufficient offer made to firefighters in retaliation for their earlier strike action.   You can read the key points in this comprehensive update from the FBU on the firefighters’ dispute.  The Coalition and employers have failed to address the issue caused by their forced increase in firefighters’ retirement age from 55 to 60 – any firefighters losing their jobs due to lack of fitness will be unable to access their pensions, leading to a bleak “no job, no pension” prospect for firefighters at the end of dangerous and arduous careers.  Added to this, firefighters are paying ever-increasing pension contributions which will average 14.2% of their wages by next April.

Watch this video to see the type of firefighters that Tory Brandon Lewis wants staffing our Fire Service.  (Please note that this short film has a flickering affect throughout which will upset people with some disabilities.)

Please support firefighters’ picket lines when they strike again from 10am to 2pm on Wednesday 13 November.  Using these handy FBU templates, please also write to your MP to object to these changes.  The Fire Service is facing huge cuts under the Coalition and Tory Fire Minister Brandon Lewis is pushing a privatisation agenda.  We must stand together with firefighters now to defend our Fire Service.

NAPO members strike against Probation Service privatisation

Tuesday 5 November – Wednesday 6 November

2.30pm Tuesday – rally outside Brighton Railway Station

Tuesday 5 November is also a national day of action against the Coalition’s cuts.  The People’s Assembly is organising a protest commencing at 12 noon at the Clock Tower in Brighton, so easy to go from that to the NAPO rally at 2.30pm.

The coming week sees workers in many different sectors taking industrial action against unfair wage freezes, reckless cuts and privatisations which are ripping the guts out of Britain.  Mixed in amongst these is a major protest in Brighton on Saturday in defence of our NHS.  Please show solidarity with local workers by supporting pickets in your area wherever you can, whether that’s at your local higher education college, fire station, post office, or elsewhere.

Thursday 31 October – UCU, UNISON & Unite Higher Education strike

8am pickets outside Brighton & Sussex Universities

12noon Assemble Victoria Gardens, Brighton

March to rally at the Corn Exchange

Show solidarity with NAPO when Probation Officers take only their fourth ever strike action for 24 hours from 12 noon on Tuesday 5 November.   Experts, including the chiefs of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire probation trusts, talk of unacceptable risks, inevitable damage to performance, equally inevitable increases in public protection failures, more preventable serious attacks and deaths, an unrealistic and unreasonable timetable for this privatisation, with serious implications for service delivery and public safety.  Chris Grayling is ignoring the evidence in his helter skelter rush to privatise probation.  It is the Coalition’s ideological fixation that has led NAPO members to strike.  Please lobby your MP to oppose the Probation Service privatisation using NAPO’s handy Probation Under Threat campaign resources, urge Labour to commit to re-nationalising probation if this sell-off does go ahead, and sign this petition opposing the privatisation of the Probation Service.

Tuesday 5 November

12 noon Brighton Clock Tower

Tuesday 5 November is also a national day of action against the Coalition’s cuts.  Various groups are organising activities, including disabled people protesting in Trafalgar Square, London.  The People’s Assembly is organising a protest commencing at 12 noon at the Clock Tower in Brighton.

10am-5pm, Saturday 9 November – Birkbeck College, London

Labour Assembly Against Austerity

Together with some terrific speakers explore the alternatives to austerity that the Labour Party must include in its next manifesto to stimulate growth, jobs and better living standards.  This event will also discuss how Labour Party members can be part of the broad based People’s Assembly Against Austerity movement of all opposed to austerity.

NUT & NASUWT joint one-day strike

Thursday 17 October 2013

Brighton & Hove – BHASVIC picket 8.30am, Pavilion Gardens demo 10.30am

Eastbourne Town Hall rally 11am

Hastings White Rock Theatre rally 11am

Brighton Centre rally 11.45am

Teachers are facing unprecedented attacks by the Coalition.  The teachers’ unions, NUT and NASUWT, together represent 90% of teachers.  They have responded to Gove’s systematic privatisation of education and unremitting attacks on teachers’ authority, status, pay, conditions and pensions, with a rolling programme of strikes.  On Thursday 17 October, NUT and NASUWT members will strike across the South East. 

“Teachers have had enough.  They’ve had enough of the attacks on their pay, on their pensions and their working conditions.  But most of all they’ve had enough of the attacks on education.  It’s time to stand up for education.  It’s time to stand up for teachers.  Please support the strikes.”  This blog from Teachers ROAR was written before one of the earlier teachers’ strikes, but it explains exactly why we should all support tomorrow’s strike in our area.

“I stand up all day. Most days, I get to work at around about 7.15am. I often leave at around 5 or 6pm. There is rarely a weekday evening in which I don’t have something to catch up on. Be it marking, planning or correspondence. I am tired.”  Is this a daily routine you could keep up til 68 as the Coalition wants to make teachers do?  Southampton teacher, Laura Rowlands, gives her personal and professional reasons for striking. 

In Brighton & Hove you can support teachers locally by joining a picket outside BHASVIC at 8.30am, supporting the demonstration in Pavilion Gardens at 10.30am, or attending the rally at the Brighton Centre at 11.45am.  In Eastbourne, support the rally at Eastbourne Town Hall at 11am.  In Hastings, support the rally at the White Rock Theatre at 11am.

It is all the more important to support teachers this week when Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt has betrayed teachers, students and Labour Party members by giving his backing to free schools.  We condemn his statement: “We are not going to go back to the old days of the local authority running all the schools – they will not be in charge.  We will keep those free schools going.”  Free schools have been shown to increase segregation in education without any rise in standards.  We suggest Ed Miliband sends Tristram on a trip to Finland to study the success of the world’s top education system – which has fully applied the comprehensive system.  Tristram can pop in to see Sweden’s failed free schools on his way home.  Then he might consider that we need to have fully qualified and properly experienced teachers running all our schools.

 Festival of Dasshera

“Celebrate the victory of good over evil”

7.30pm, Friday 11 October 2013

63 Buckingham Road, Brighton BN1

Authentic Indian vegetarian thali 

Glass of wine or beer included

£15 per head

Booking is essential

Email rashmipaun@gmail.com to book

and

Support Purna 4 Pavilion

BRIGHTON & HOVE LRC MEETING

7.30pm, Thursday 3 October

Lord Nelson Inn, Trafalgar Street, Brighton

All welcome

On 25 September 2013, Sussex LRC members were out supporting pickets as firefighters held a 4 hour national strike across England and Wales.  This was a “warning short” in protest at the Coalition’s refusal to negotiate on their ridiculous and unworkable plan to raise firefighters’ pension age to 60.  You can support firefighters by writing to your MP to protest against these changes using the handy templates provided by the FBU.

With the national FBU demonstration in London on Wednesday 16 October, Brighton & Hove LRC has invited a local FBU representative to speak to our next meeting.

The Fire Service is facing more huge cuts under the Coalition.  Tory Fire Minister Brandon Lewis wants privatisation as London Mayor Johnson undemocratically ignored 94% public opposition to push through his cuts.  Only Labour Boroughs seeking judicial review now stand between Londoners and Johnson’s reckless cuts to London’s Fire Service.  With Tory-controlled authorities in East and West Sussex, that route would be an unlikely option here.  We must stand together now to defend our Fire Service.

Teachers are also facing unprecedented attacks by the Coalition.  The teachers’ unions, NUT and NASUWT, have responded to Gove’s systematic privatisation of education and unremitting attacks on teachers’ authority, status, pay, conditions and pensions, with a rolling programme of strikes.  On Thursday 17 October, NUT and NASUWT members will strike across the South East.  Brighton & Hove LRC will discuss how best to support teachers locally.