public services

Yesterday, Liverpool Solidarity Federation members joined picket lines in Liverpool and Bootle to offer support to strikers and attended a 20,000-strong march through the City Centre. Below are several personal reports from members' blogs.

See reflections from striking Solfed members at Truth, Reason & Liberty and Working Class Self-Organisation.

A choice: race to the bottom or fight and win - blog by a Solfed member in the private sector who supported the strike.

Last night, Liverpool Solidarity Federation members were amongst protesters gathered outside Liverpool Town Hall. They demonstrated as Liverpool City Council held a Budget Question Time in order to seek views on how they could save £50m in the coming year. Whilst the audience inside gave the councilors a hard time, those outside disrupted traffic by blocking off a road.

Read Liverpool members' individual reflections on the day on the Truth, Reason & Liberty and Working Class Self-Organisation blogs.

Today saw the start of the Royal College of GPs conference in Liverpool. Keep Our NHS Public held a protest outside the venue, the BT Convention Centre, as health minister Andrew Lansley was set to be the day's keynote speaker. Members of Liverpool Solidarity Federation joined the action.

As the land was private property, the security had taken the trouble to set up a protest pen using steel barricades, in which the demonstrators were to be contained. Liverpool Solfed members and others were resistant to this, but too many of those who turned up complied willingly either by going inside or by keeping their distance from the centre whilst giving out leaflets. The minority who chose not to be caged - especially as there were no police present! - simply kept moving about so that they were never static enough to be herded back to the pen.

A private sector worker and SolFed member speaks out about why they have joined in the resistance against privatising public services - and argues for the struggle to spread to the private sector itself.

Originally written for the Oxford Save Our Services blog.

There has been much praise heaped upon the private sector recently. Successive governments have argued that opening up public services to the private markets is a good thing. The private sector is more efficient, more dynamic and more flexible than the old-fashioned public sector, they say. The one thing all this praise of the private sector has in common, however, is that it all comes from people at the top. From the businessmen and their friends in parliament. You'll not hear much praise from someone like me. After all, I'm just the person who makes them their money.

An unbranded poster designed to promote the upcoming pension strikes.

A leaflet in support of Queen Mary staff and against the cuts there.  Designed to be given out to students and the public.

Generic leaflet that can be given out to education workers, students, parents, or members of the public.

Generic leaflet that can be given out to education workers, students, parents, or members of the public.

Today saw SolFedders join with some 100 members of the public to support an unofficial strike by University of London cleaners at Senate House.  The cleaners, who are primarily Latin American immigrants and who are employed by the privateer Balfour Beatty, struck over unpaid wages. With some cleaners not having been paid for three months, it was decided yesterday that official union channels weren’t working and the workers called for a strike to begin today at 8am. 

As well as facing the consequences and disrespect of unpaid wages, the workers and make less than cleaners at nearby SOAS and Birkbeck, who've secured the so-called the “London Living Wage”. Considering that this is Balfour Beatty's first contract in higher education, the role of privisation, cuts, and a living wage formed the backdrop for today's noisy protest and work stoppage.

Direct Action in the Canadian Post:

Shop Committees, Self-Organisation, and Wildcat Strikes

When: Saturday August 20th, 4:30 to 6:30

Where: Above the Lucas Arms Pub (Grays Inn Road near Euston-Kings Cross Station, London)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250049588353374