Privatisation

Workers in Barnet will strike on 7 October in an ongoing fight against privatisation. Social workers, coach escorts, drivers, occupational therapists, schools catering staff, education welfare officers, library workers, children centre workers, street cleaning and refuse workers will strike on 7 October as their services face outsourcing. These workers are some of the only ones left directly employed by Barnet council after mass privatisation, as the “easycouncil” aims to reduce its directly employed staff to less than 300. Barnet council has already privatised social care for adults with...

The Daily Mail’s serialisation of Michael Ashcroft’s unauthorised “revenge biography” of David Cameron, with its revelations of “posh debauchery” by the future Prime Minister and his friends when at Oxford University, continuing into later life, were, depending on your point of view, amusing, or further proof of the vileness of the ruling class. Unfortunately the “Chipping Snorton set” (as the Daily Mail put it) kept a much more serious story off the front pages of the papers. This was how Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge had been downgraded by the Care Quality Commission. It has gone from...

Workers facing outsourcing from London borough of Barnet council will strike on Wednesday 7 October. The dispute involves social workers, coach escorts, drivers, occupational therapists, schools catering staff, education welfare officers, library workers, children centre workers, street cleaning and refuse workers, all of whom face outsourcing under Barnet's “easycouncil” model which will see the number of directly employed staff fall to less than 300. Barnet's plans mean council budgets will be cut 40% by 2020. As well as the services already planned to be outsourced, Barnet announced last...

On Saturday 12 September over 600 people marched through the London borough of Barnet to protest against the council’s proposed privatisation and shutting down of libraries. The “kids’ march for libraries” protest marched from East Finchley Library, to Finchley Church End Library before continuing on to North Finchley Library, where a rally was held in a nearby pub. Actors and authors, including actress Rebecca Front and author Alan Gibbons, joined the protest, as well as over 600 local residents, activists and many children. The march was also supported by Lesbian and Gays support the Miners...

United Voices of the World (UVW) union continues its protests in support of sacked union members Barbara and Percy. Barbara and Percy were sacked from Sotheby’s auction house, where they worked as porters and cleaners, after they helped organise a protest to demand sick pay and for trade union rights. On Monday 7 September UVW organised a protest at a car auction Sotheby’s was holding in Battersea park. Two of the four UVW activists originally sacked by Sotheby’s have got their jobs back, but Sotheby’s continues to victimise Percy and Barbara. • Find out more here Gallery strikes continue...

On 4 September, workers striking against privatisation of services at the National Gallery handed in a petition signed by over 133,000 people. The delivery of the petition was timed to mark the 80th day of strikes at the gallery. Around a hundred people gathered outside the gallery on Trafalger Square to hand in the petition, which has garnered widespread support online. Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing backbench MP John McDonnell both sent messages of support and solidarity to the protest. Gallery workers have been on indefinite strike since the start of August after...

One of the measures imposed by the capitalist Eurozone leaders on Greece, and shamefully accepted by the Syriza-led government, is privatisation of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki. Likely bidders are Maersk, ICTSI, and the Chinese company Cosco, which already runs two of three container quays at Piraeus on a 35 year contract. Hutchison tried for Thessaloniki when there was previous talk of privatising it, in 2008. Cosco’s contract at Piraeus has been successful for Cosco. Traffic has grown to three million teu (twenty-foot-equivalent units); Piraeus is now Europe’s eighth busiest...

The motto of the dock workers sacked on 6 August in Sydney and Brisbane by Hutchison, the world’s biggest container terminal operator, remains: one day longer! However long Hutchison delays on reinstatement, the workers’ protest will last one day longer. On 2 September the privatised Port of Brisbane — landlord for the Hutchison Brisbane terminal and for the approach road — told the workers that they must dismantle the community protest line maintained at the terminal entrance since 7 August. The Port backed down after a meeting of the Hutchison workers and union delegates from other terminals...

Anti-privatisation campaigners and Unite the union in the London borough of Bromley are calling for a referendum on the planned privatisation of the learning disabilities service, due to be privatised on 1 October. Adult services staff, members of Unite, struck for 48 hours from 00.01 on Thursday 27 August. Their strike is part of ongoing strikes across council services facing privatisation. Library staff will strike for five days starting from 00.01 on 1 September, as the council goes ahead with its plans to privatise 14 of the borough's libraries. In a separate dispute in Bromley's already...

The long-running dispute over outsourcing at the National Gallery in London has escalated, with workers taking indefinite strike action. The bosses claim that pay and conditions will not be affected by this change, but workers are deeply sceptical. As one PCS member argued: “if privatisation will keep the same pay and conditions (at presumably the same cost as the Gallery is paying) then where is their profit going to come from?” Tellingly, outgoing Gallery director Nicholas Penny rounded off a letter to the Guardian with the hope that privatisation might see an end to the “frustration” of...