job cuts

250 people marched through Hackney on Saturday against the threat of 55 redundancies at Hackney College. Although there have been redundancies every year bar one for ten years, this year the proposed cuts are much more serious.
In a borough with 11, 243 people claiming JSA chasing just 669 jobs in the jobcentre, courses that may be closed include basic literacy, basic maths and health and social care. All the courses in the Access department are at risk even though Access to Nursing, for example, is already full with more than a hundred people on the waiting list. 

Merseyside police have brought a protest against City Council cuts, at the Town Hall, to a violent end by physically assaulting and arresting innocent protesters.

A number of Solfed members were present at the incident, and you can read full write-ups at the Truth, Reason & Liberty, magiczebras, JayoDoom, Working Class Self Organisation blogs and on Twitter. There is also a report from an Occupy Liverpool member, sympathetic to Solfed, here.

Entering the council chambers of Liverpool Town Hall during a protest against his council's cuts programme, Labour Council Leader Joe Anderson claimed: "I got kicked in my ankles and punched in the side." This was reported unquestioningly by the Liverpool Echo and by Radio City 96.7.

The following video - taken by a member of Liverpool Solidarity Federation - shows him entering the town hall, surrounded by police officers and members of the City Watch. Neither they nor Anderson react at any point as if he is physically attacked. He enters the building unscathed.

Joe Anderson is a liar, as we can all see for ourselves!

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.

Workfare is a growing problem, as demonstrated by recent stories of a number of supermarkets had volunteered to be providers for the scheme and that young people were providing 30 hours a week of unpaid labour. This presents a problem both for the claimants trapped by this scheme, essentially as slave labour, and for the providers' workforce who are being undercut by those doing their job at practically no cost. Equally worrying is that, despite the growing anger over government attacks and emergence of anti-cuts groups across the country, nothing is being done to challenge this.

We’ve seen cuts to education, leading to the destruction of EMA, tripled uni fees, mass redundancies and course closures. We’re now witnessing – if we fail to stand up and beat it – the virtual privatisation of education. But the government’s austerity measures are not just attacking education – pensioners, the unemployed, workers in all industries in both public and private sector are all facing massive cuts – leaving no-one spared!

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.

Chris, a library worker at Queen Mary Uni

Over the summer Queen Mary University  (QMUL) library workers have been organising in defence of jobs and services, in reponse to restructuring plans that will see a loss of 26 out of 82 jobs.

The majority of the affected workers are part-time and the nature of the workplace means that they are also term-time only workers. Management release the plans in July.  This meant the majority of the affected staff were on leave, a clear act of discrimination against part-timers and those with child care commitments. University bosses clearly designed this to prevent workers from effectively responding, resisting and seeking solidarity from the students, who were also off campus.

450 workers at the Visteon Cadiz Electronica factory are facing the scrapheap. The local section of the CNT union is fighting against the closure of the plant.  Other reformist unions inside the plant are engaged in a pantomime struggle, focusing not on saving jobs but simply negotiating over redundancy plans with the bosses. The closure of the plant comes as no surprise: already in 2009, there was a temporary forced adjustment plan which affected almost the entire workforce for  six months, and skilled workers were moved to other facilities of the multinational, preparing the ground to continue producing the same car components elsewhere. This follows a pattern which is now well known.

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.