On Thursday 20th January members of Northampton Solfed attended a local meeting "Northampton Alliance to Defend Services" at the Guildhall.  The meeting was well attended, the hall was packed with between 200 and 300 people.  (Which meant we hadn't taken quite enough Catalysts with us!)

The first speaker, Tracey Morel, represented a local charity "Autism Concern" and spoke about the imapct on people with autism, but touched on those needing various types of care.  In particular she discussed the implications of changes to disability allowance and the massive problems it will cause to individuals and families.

The second, Mick Kavanagh, represented the CWU and talked mostly about the impact of privitisation of the Post Office, including the implicated attack on the pensions fund.

Neoliberal ideology is a crock of shit and everyone left of Labour knows it. Critics have pointed out its flawed assumptions regarding perfect competition, consumer access to information, human nature and a host of other factors that nowhere apply in the real world. They’ve also pointed out that where neoliberal policies have been applied, the results have often been disastrous and rarely matched the promised outcomes of prosperity for the rich and trickle down for the poor. One famous example was the so-called J-curve model for transitioning the former USSR to Western-style capitalism. The ‘J’, a small downswing in transition followed by a long upswing when neoliberal policies worked their magic, turned into something more resembling an ‘L’, plunging millions into worse poverty than before.

And then there’s the cuts.

Delegates from the CNT-AIT unions, French section of International Workers Association (IWA), gathered in Toulouse today welcomed the popular uprising of January 14, 2011 in Tunisia.
 

On Saturday 15th January around 50 people, including members of the fledgling Thames Valley local, marched across Reading from the Royal Berkshire Hospital to the Civic Centre to register their opposition to the government’s cuts in public services.

Leafleting the public along the way the turnout was double the number that attended the previous protest and culminated in a series of speeches outside the civic centre. Spokespeople from the Reading Save Our Services group, Unison, the Reading Trades Council, a Labour Party councillor and a councillor for the Green Party all took part. All made clear how the proposed cuts, both locally and nationally, would impact hardest on the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community, from cuts in services for children to the loss of up to 600 jobs at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Written by Jim Allen and directed by Ken Loach, The Big Flame was broadcast as the BBC's Wednesday Play in 1969. It documents a fictional unofficial strike on Liverpool's docks in which the workers, frustrated by the uselessness of their union officials, decide to take matters into their own hands (as we in SolFed advocate).

North London members tapped in to their inner-artist today to create a truly beautiful new banner!

Long after the mysterious dissapperance of our old one, it was time for NLSF to create a new banner for all those marches and demos.

With workers facing across-the-board cutbacks, members of Brighton SolFed today hit the streets to talk to retail staff about their rights. After the UKUncut protests have shifted attention to the multi-million pound tax dodging of several high street names, we went to talk to retail workers, encouraging them to get organised to prevent bosses cutting costs by cutting their conditions. We’ll be back again in a couple of weeks to keep the issue topical, and keep local bosses on notice that attacks on workers’ conditions won’t go unnoticed!

You can download a copy of SolFed’s basic workplace rights leaflet, 'the Stuff Your Boss doesn’t want you to know' here.

Members of Northampton Solfed spent some of their Saturday morning handing out copies of Catalyst at the Weston Favel Shopping Centre, until security staff moved them on.  (Yet again we find that 'public' places are no such thing.)

More distribution is planned for next Saturday.  Any one interested in helping out, or who would like some copies to distribute in their own area should contact us.

On Sunday 9th Solidarity Federation members joined the march in Witney, Oxfordshire, constituency of Prime Minister David Cameron. The march, against postal privatisation and austerity cuts, was organised by the CWU (Communication Worker's Union) Eastern Branch. Solidarity Federation members from the new Thames Valley local as well as from Liverpool and London handed out leaflets arguing for anarcho-syndicalist methods in struggle and introductory leaflets about the Solidarity Federation which were well received by marchers.

A brief look at last year’s developments with regards to Intern pay, a story that the BBC News website is has just updated under its Education section.

Last year, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) argued for a 'training wage' of £2.50 for those on internships of three months or more as a means to 'boost UK productivity'.[1] Unpaid intern work is of inherently unequal access, because those people with good connections and from wealthier backgrounds are much more likely and capable of finding and staying on an unpaid internship.