Outsourced University of London workers to strike

Outsourced cleaning, catering, and security workers at the University of London will strike on 27 and 28 November.

Their strike ballot returned a 97% vote in favour of strikes, on a 70% turnout. The workers, who are employed by agencies such as Balfour Beatty and Aramark, have been fighting for sick pay, holiday, and pensions equality with their directly-employed colleagues through the "Tres Cosas" ("Three Things") campaign.

In defence of comrade Matgamna and Workers’ Liberty

I. These are the rules

A storm should leave in its wake stillness and clarity.
Marxism to me works as a method of thinking and application; a body of ideas and a school of experience; a theory to apply to any given reality with an analytical rigour and honesty; and, a process of testing, modifying and evolving ideas and practice in the interests of our class. There are also certain Marxist principles, as Leon Trotsky articulates:

Philippines: why the typhoon killed

One of the deadliest storms since records began hit the Philippines on 8 November. Over 10,000 people have died. Extracts from a declaration by the Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM, a Filipino socialist party), on 10 November.


The people are still reeling from the impact of possibly the biggest typhoon to strike the country. Death toll numbers are rising rapidly. There is huge devastation.

Firstly, we have to support and take whatever measures are necessary to protect the people.

University workers to strike again

Higher Education workers’ unions UCU, Unison, Unite (and the EIS union in Scotland) have called a strike on Tuesday 3 December.

Lecturers’ union UCU has begun a work-to-contract, asking members not to take on any duties not strictly required by their terms of employment.

Universities depend on the willingness of staff to work well beyond reasonable hours, and a well-organised campaign will help put management under pressure. Local organisation, down to departmental level, with regular members’ meetings, is the key to making the work-to-contract effective.

Industrial news in brief

Outsourced cleaning, catering, and security workers at the University of London are balloting for strikes in their long-running campaign to win sick pay, holiday, and pension equality with their directly-employed colleagues.

The workers are organised by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), a small union with few resources. Solidarity and financial support are essential if the workers are to be able to take the kind of action necessary to force concessions from the bosses. You can donate to the strike fund online.

More strikes due in fire dispute

Firefighters in England and Wales were posed for their fourth short pension strike this week, as the battle began to harden into a more protracted dispute.

On Wednesday 13 November, FBU members in England and Wales will strike from 10am to 2pm, another short action designed to show that firefighters do not accept the government’s unworkable pension changes. The differences have hardened since the last strikes on 1 and 4 November, after the fire minister withdrew part of an earlier offer, making the actuarial reduction for retiring early even more draconian.

Resist jobs massacre

Thousands of jobs are on the line as bosses in the shipbuilding, manufacturing and aviation industries plan huge layoffs.

BAE Systems plans to axe nearly 2,000 jobs by closing, or significantly reducing, sites in Glasgow and Portsmouth, ending shipbuilding entirely in the southern English city. The Polimeri chemical refinery in Southampton plans to close, threatening 300 jobs, and the Flybe airline, based in Exeter, plans to cut 500 jobs.

Hicks and the witch hunt

Another Sunday, another issue of the Sunday Times, another attack on Unite (on pages 1, 4, 16, 17, and 33).

But this time Jerry Hicks — three-time general secretary candidate, founder of “Grass Roots Left” in Unite, and now a leading figure in the new “Unite Grass Roots Rank and File” — has given a helping hand.

Hicks later backpedalled, and stressed that he was opposed to any attempt to use the complaint he has made over Unite’s general secretary election in a witch hunt against the union. But that was all too little, too late — and singularly unconvincing.

The left on Grangemouth

The Unite union’s defeat by Ineos at the Grangemouth oil refinery and petrochemicals plant in Scotland merits serious analysis and discussion by socialist organisations. We need to understand what happened and draw appropriate lessons in order to minimise the risk of such defeats in future.

Much of the left press has been desperate to spin a narrative of a militant workforce champing at the bit to take radical action, but being held back (and, ultimately, stitched up and sold out) by a capitulatory bureaucracy.

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