No sellout on pensions

It appears that a full-scale sellout is on the cards in the pensions dispute. The leaders of the larger unions, Unison and GMB, want to sign up to "heads of agreement" with the Government despite the fact that we have won nothing of significance.

NUT, UCU and PCS are said to be outraged at this development.

This is being done in the run-up to the Xmas break with the leadership hoping that they can get this betrayal through with minimal resistance.

The statement below has been issued by a number of trade unionists. Please add your name.

A group of leading trade unionists have issued the following statement after reports of moves to end the present pensions dispute:

The government’s “final offer” is no improvement. There is no extra money on offer. The government still wants public sector workers to work longer, pay more and get less. They haven’t moved on core issues:

Fifty percent rise in pension contributions.
Normal pension age to rise to the state retirement age.
Retirement at 68 for those 34 and under.
Pensions indexed at CPI instead of RPI. A cut for all existing pensioners.
We agree with those union general secretaries who are against accepting this offer. We ask all union general secretaries – if it was right to strike against these proposals on 30 November how it can be right to accept them now? Ordinary trade union members have demonstrated their determination to resist these unfair and unnecessary changes; we call on our trade union leaders to reject the government's bullying tactics and reject this unacceptable offer.

Alex Kenny NUT Executive member (Inner London)

Andrew Baisley Camden NUT branch secretary

Dave Harvey NUT Executive member (Outer London)

Martin Powell-Davis NUT Executive member (Inner London)

Mark Campbell UCU Executive member

Liz Lawrence UCU Executive member

Sean Vernell UCU Executive member

Loraine Monk UCU Executive member

Christine Vie UCU Executive member

David Armstrong UCU Executive member

Guy Stoate UCU Executive member

Sign the statement here: http://bit.ly/sVyIla

View the signatories here: http://bit.ly/rJ8SGJ


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An enduring outrage

URGENT ACTION NEEDED - NEW REPORT OF INHUMANE CONDITIONS IN CAMP FIVE ECHO

According to a new report in the Washington Post, British Resident Shaker Aamer is being held in abysmal and disgusting conditions in Camp Five Echo.
The steel cells are half the size of the cells in Camp Five. He does not have enough room to pray. The bright lights affect his eyes and the air conditioning is set to extreme cold. The squat toilet, set in the floor, is difficult to use. Shaker has described the cell to his US lawyer, Ramzi Kassem, as,.."decrepit, filthy and disgusting." Shaker is being held in solitary confinement, in his cell for 22 hours a day. This is his punishment for being "non-compliant." Shaker is known for speaking out against the abuses of human rights in Guantanamo. He has damaged his own health by using the only power he has against the system in enduring long periods on hunger strike. We know from Clive Stafford Smith's report of his meeting this November with Shaker in Guantanamo, that there are now real fears for Shaker's life due to his declining health and lack of medical treatment. Shaker's own letter, made public earlier this year, confirms this. We understand from Battersea MP for Shaker's family, Jane Ellison, that the UK Government is really listening, so the time for urgent is action is NOW.
Please write/email /phone/text to all your contacts to appeal for Shaker Aamer's immediate release to the UK from these inhumane conditions.

WRITE TO DAVID CAMERON, 10 DOWNING STREET, LONDON SW1A 2AG
FOREIGN SECRETARY,WILIAM HAGUE, THE FOREIGN OFFICE, KING CHARLES STREET, LONDON, SW1A 2AH
THE US EMBASSY , AMBASSADOR LOUS SUSMAN, 24 GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON W1A 1AE
PRESIDENT OBAMA,THE WHITE HOUSE,1600 PENNSYVANNIA AVENUE NW,WASHINGTON DC 20500 USA



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The Crisis in Housing

Brighton Benefits campaign
PUBLIC MEETING

7.30PM on THURSDAY 8 DECEMBER

FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE, SHIP STREET BRIGHTON

ALL WELCOME

While David Cameron and his cabinet of millionaires live it up in their multiple luxurious mansions, they propose to hit those who have only one roof over their heads with an all-out assault on housing benefits and social housing.

The Government’s proposals include:

Housing benefit to private tenants paid only up to the lowest 30% of rents in an area, rather than 50% as they are paid currently;
Housing benefit levels not to increase in line with rents any more;
New council tenants to have only 2 years security of tenure and this will include successor tenants;
A resumption of Thatcher’s disastrous ‘right to buy’ policy, to sell off what council houses remain;
Mortgage interest payments have already been slashed by half and are time-limited after two years of being unemployed
The government seek to divide and rule by claiming that these cuts are being made against ‘scroungers’ who are out of work, in the interest of those in work. This is nonsense – in reality, 80% of those in receipt of housing benefits are in work. Most people need to claim housing benefit because of low wages.

According to the Chartered Institute of Housing, 750,000 people across the UK will lose their homes because of the cuts. They will throw households into spiralling debt and will ‘cleanse’ large areas of cities like Brighton of ordinary tenants on a low wage.

While the rich continue to rake in enormous bonuses and obscene profits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted that the living standards of ordinary people in the UK will decline until at least 2013/2014. But rather than changing course, the government has begun to crack down on those who oppose them. The families of those involved in August’s riots have been threatened with arbitrary evictions and other collective punishments, while the disgraceful Hove MP Mike Weatherley has led a campaign pressing for draconian new legislation against squatting, to further punish those who will be made homeless and to forestall effective opposition to the cuts.

We need to fight back now. Only a large, determined, and organised campaign can force the government back and defend our wages, living standards, and homes.

housing melm





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November 30th in Brighton

Dave Hill writes.....

Brilliant stike action today nationally and locally in Brighton... around 6,000 to 10,000 strikers (depending police estimates or organisers' estimates) marched through Brighton and at the rally at the Level heard lots of speakers such as Phil Clarke (Secretary of Lewes, Eastbourne and Wealden NUT, Chair of Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition, and TUSC activist), and Pip Tindall (Brighton Benefits Campaign, UNISON and Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition activist, and TUSC candidate for the Westbourne Ward byelection on 22 December for the Brighton and Hove City Council Vacancy) address the crowd of many thousands.

The march was spurred on not only by anger at the ruling class attack on workers' wages, conditions, benefits and pensions, but also by the Chancellor of the Exchequer/ Finance Minister George Osbourne's class war financial statement in parliament of 29 Nov- not one penny taken from the pockets of the rich, billions taken from the pockets of the working class, especially from the poor...






















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November 30th - photos and video

A brilliant turnout. The unions reckon 10,000. The biggest march in Brighton for generations and solid strikes in many workplaces.

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See you on the picket line...

MASS STRIKE THIS WEDNESDAY JOIN THE PICKETS AND DEMONSTRATION.

THE MAIN DEMONSTRATION MEETS 11:45am, VICTORIA GARDENS, GRAND PARADE.

Please make sure you show your support for the massive strike action this Wednesday 30th November. This is not only a chance to defend public sector pensions but to stop a race to the bottom, for fair pensions for all and to expose the real scandal of lack of decent pensions provision in the private sector.

This huge show of strength will enable us to go on to stop the government’s slash and burn attacks on our public services, jobs and benefits.
Details of pickets you are welcome to attend to show support are below, as well as feeder march details.

THE MAIN DEMONSTRATION MEETS 11:45am, VICTORIA GARDENS, GRAND PARADE.

Please forward this email on, bring your friends and family and let’s make this the largest demonstration Brighton has ever seen!
Stop the Cuts needs people to volunteer to collect email addresses, collect donations and give out anti-cuts material on the day. Please email BrightonTradesCouncil@gmail.com if you can help.

Thanks


Main Pickets - If you do not have your own picket, you are welcome at these to show support

Hove Town Hall 7am
Brighton Town Hall 7am
Kings House Grand Ave 7am
Hollingdean Depot 5:30am
Job Centre Edward Street 7am
Brighton Uni Moulsecoomb Site 7am
Brighton Uni Falmer 7am
Brighton Uni Grand Parade 7am
Sussex Uni 7am
Jubilee Library 7:30am
City College 6am
Varndean College 7:45am

Feeder Marches
10:30am from Whitehawk Bus Garage, Hove Town Hall and Brighton University Moulsecoomb Site. These will collect other picketing workers as they make their way towards the:

MAIN MARCH WHICH FORMS UP 11:45AM VICTORIA GARDENS, GRAND PARADESee More

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Ex-Green candidate, Pip Tindall, stands against all cuts in Westbourne by-election

Now a member of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), Pip Tindall is standing in the Westbourne by-election, due to take place on 22 December.

Pip, who is an NHS worker, trade unionist and welfare rights campaigner, stood as a Green Party candidate for East Brighton in the May 2011 local elections. She had signed the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition pledge to oppose all cuts and give a political voice to a mass campaign to have central funding reinstated for public services in Brighton and Hove.

When the Greens were elected and Pip saw they intended to administer, rather than fight, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat cuts, she and husband, Paul Tindall, left and joined the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

"The Green Party says it's opposed to cuts, but that’s just so much hot air if they won’t fight them when they get the chance. I was horrified when I realised that the Greens in Brighton intended to hand down the cost of the banking crisis to those least able to afford it - the public service users of Brighton and Hove.

The working class is being forced to pay for the bankers’ greed. We need an inclusive political voice to say ‘NO to all cuts’ which the Greens and ‘too far, too fast’ Labour can’t offer - only TUSC is proposing a serious alternative to slash and burn austerity."

During my election campaign I pledge to:
· Publicise the fact that public service cuts are wholly unnecessary and driven by political dogma;
· Publicise the fact that alternative and just sources of income are readily available to central Government to fund public services;
· Work for the anti-cuts vote to be maximised;
· Work proactively and vigorously with ward and city anti-cuts campaigns;
· Oppose all use of discrimination and division to promote a cuts agenda.

If elected I pledge to:
· Oppose and vote against any attempts to set Council budgets which will result in cuts to public services and local jobs or a worsening of terms and conditions for council staff;
· Oppose and vote against any attempts to cut or privatise individual public services;
· Oppose any above inflation increase in council tax and instead campaign for a progressive national tax system where the rich pay more;
· Propose an alternative ‘no-cuts’ budget which could involve use of reserves and/or council borrowing powers and a campaign against the government to replace the funding they are cutting from local government;
· Fully support industrial action taken by trade unions to defend their members’ jobs, terms and conditions from cuts;
· Use my position to argue against all cuts and support and publicise campaigns against privatisation and cuts in jobs, services or benefits.



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