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News
Nationalise Airbus and other manufacturing plants to save jobs now!
NHS crisis deepens: Workers’ and community action can save our health service
The news that A&E waiting times have hit the worst level since records began is yet further proof of the ongoing crisis in our NHS.
Youth climate strikes
“There’s no planet B”: Thousands of youth strike against climate change – we need socialist change!
On 15 February, tens of thousands of school and college students walked out of their lessons to join protests across the country to demand action over climate change and environmental destruction.
Youth strike for the climate reports: “There’s no planet B”
Opinion
TV: Les Misérables – Hugo’s novel and this adaptation both offer a message of hope
Les Misérables started life as a three-volume novel by Victor Hugo written during his political exile from France.
Letters to the Socialist’s editors including Luciana Berger and Wavertree CLP and villainous Winston Churchill
What we think
Eight Blairites split – Now kick out the rest
Editorial of the Socialist issue 1030: On 14 February, Theresa May suffered her tenth parliamentary defeat over Brexit. The Tory party is split down the middle. May’s government is on the brink of collapse
Workplace news
PCS Left Unity must unite on pay and elections
Forty years of union activists’ work, building the broad left of the civil servants’ union PCS Left Unity – and democratising the union, is being put at risk by the divisive and sectarian antics of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Socialist View group.
Universal Credit staff ballot for action
The possibility of strike action on 11-12 March is on the cards at Walsall and Wolverhampton Universal Credit service centres. The ballot finishes on 25 February.
Annoyed?! I’m annoyed to be on poverty wages
There was another lively picket outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in London on 13 February. The staff, PCS members, are outsourced on contracts that pay poverty wages. They want to be brought back in-house and paid a living wage.
Nationalise to save jobs at Honda!
Birmingham bin strike against ‘blacklisting’
Hundreds of Birmingham bin workers in Unite the Union took strike action on 19 February to protest the council making secret payments to workers who did not take part in the 2017 bin strike. There were picket lines across four depots.
Deliveroo riders strike against exploitative pay and conditions
Leicester college pay strike goes on
After their successful one-day strike on 6 February, staff from both sites at WQE college in Leicester struck again on 13-14 February.
Cardiff Uni: urgent action needed to stop job cuts
Hackney: Unite fights racism and victimisation
Harrowing accounts of austerity at Unison women’s conference
Delegates at the women’s conference of public sector union Unison gave harrowing accounts of living their lives in debt, and how they have been reduced to choosing between eating and heating while trying to put food on the table for their families.
Unite the Union has launched a pay campaign targeting GLL. The company, operating under brand name ‘Better’, competes for leisure and library contracts around the country.
International socialist news and analysis
Spanish state: social polarisation and budget defeat force snap election
Defeat the right in the ballot boxes and in the streets!: Pedro Sánchez’s term is over. A government of the social democratic ‘PSOE’ party, formed eight months ago after the vote of no confidence against Rajoy of the traditional right-wing ‘PP’ party, has been brought down by a vote in parliament
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Unite union London council workers back Enfield Labour no-cuts call
Leeds TUC presents a no-cuts alternative budget
The anti-austerity committee of Leeds Trade Union Council (TUC) – which brings together the city’s unions – presented its alternative city budget at a special public meeting on 12 February.
Socialist Students conference shows potential for fighting leadership
Around 90 delegates and visitors from Socialist Students groups across Britain debated the student movement and its socialist potential on Saturday 9 February.
London housing campaigners disrupt auction
Socialist Party members joined campaigners – including the Social Housing Action Campaign (Shac), which links housing workers with residents – to protest at a Savills auction
Birmingham Uni: Standing up to racism is not harassment!
On 1 February, the Guild of the University of Birmingham formally de-recognised the University of Birmingham Socialist Students society in an attack on democracy and free speech on campus, writes Socialist Student Statement on de-recognition.
Leicester Socialists stand against Blairite mayor
Leicester Socialist Party has announced it has selected Steve Score, local campaigner, to stand in May’s mayoral elections
Lincoln students back UCU ballot
On the evening of the 28 January, Lincoln Socialist Students organised a meeting on the University and College Union ballot currently underway.
Claimants and union slam Universal Credit
On 24 January, a public meeting by Haringey Against Universal Credit was attended by about 100 people.
Energy retail firm collapse hits Tyneside
Already reeling from numerous national and local collapses of businesses today fresh blows were rained down on Tyneside’s struggling workforce.
World economy
New recession fear stalks the world economy
2018 marked ten years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank which plunged the world economy into the deepest economic recession since the 1930s.