Support Paul Holmes 4 UNISON General Secretay

I'm supporting Paul Holmes for UNISON General Secretary as is UNISON United Left and John McDonnell MP. The campaign is gathering pace now with nominations coming in (Nomination period ends on the 1st April) so any stroppyblog readers that are also UNISON members please pass on his nomination request to your Branch Secretary and Branch Committee.

More info including Paul's request for nomination and UUL statement of support over on Union Futures

Paul also has a campaign blog and of course a facebook group.

Heres a video with John McDonnell MP and Paul Holmes on why John's supporting Paul.

UNISON Leadership battle!

Can someone tell me what is going on with UNISON General Secretary leadership and who is supporting who? I'm confused.

Ed's blog

A quick plug for a newish blog - EdIsRed by lovely friend and comrade Ed Whitby. So far, it mainly includes Unison local government issues, the campaign to stop Ed's local Tyne and Wear Metro being privatised and a pic of his boyf.

Stroppy - add Ed to the blogroll will ya, sis? Ta.

Fremantle demo

Links to a crop of YouTube clips of the recent Fremantle demo here.

Protests in the Streets of Edinburgh

Here's me addressing the masses today outside the Edinburgh City Chambers where councillors voted through £10 million worth of cuts and to have a "consultation" about 22 school closures! (Not very glamourous but I have been picketing since 7 in the morning)

8000 council workwers were on strike and hundreds of campaigners from all the groups, nurseries, schools, community centres etc were out in full.

One of the biggest contingencies were the High School pupils from the three secondary schools that are to close. They were outside the city chambers in full school uniform from eight this morning with great banners like "Hey councillor! Leave our schools alone!" They are talking about having a school student strike in defence of their schools and services.

Politics in Edinburgh are all over the place. The Green Party has three councillors and despite voting against the closures and cuts had no presence at all at the protest. New Labour (despite being in power in the city for 23 years and responsible for spending the council's reserves) got all revolutionary and tried to be protestors, but they haven't done it for a very long time so didn't really know what to do - UNISON leadership couldn't even organise a decent PA system. The swips were out in force with their paper but no sign of Solidary (at all). The SNP who are trying to be all populist but are going to have to make really unpopular decisions - stayed away from the media today and have done all week. The SNP Executive in the Parliament have a policy for smaller class sizes and more nursery places. The SNP/Lib Dem coalittion in Edinburgh have voted through a proposal to potentially close 22 schools and nurseries!

The Scottish Socialist Party had quite a good intervention, even if I say so myself - we have a few comrades in the council, Colin Fox, convenor of the SSP spoke and was well received, our paper and leaflets were taken in good spirits too.

I have to say a good day of striking and protesting doesn't half raise your spirits - looks like there will be interesting times in Edinburgh over the next few months. I'll bore youse all with the details as they unfold - well I'll give some reports. If you are very interested you can look up the Edinburgh Evening News on google.

And if you want to see more photos - nicer ones than me and to see the mood of the protest today just click on the link

http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/inpictures/embra_0807/index.htm

Revolting Edinburgh

UNISON Council workers are on strike tomorow - new administration are making £10 million worth of cuts due to the last administration spending all the city's reserves so we are going on strike tomorrow in protest. But the city seems to be going daft protesting as the councillors have announced that there will be 22 school and nursery closures. Closures of community centres, cut backs to older people and disabled people, life and limb cover only in the home help service. All in all they are totally sledge hammering services with NO or little consultation.

However I am cynical enough to believe that they have bloated the amount of closures and cut backs in order to have some token sucesses in all the campaigns. 16 closures instead of 22, which would make the council look lenient.

We need to stand together - not seperate.

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1332402007#new

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1333222007

I'll let you know how we get on tomorrow.

Up the workers!

Low pay

Thanks to Stroppy for inviting me to 'bring a bit of class' to the blog ;)

Though I think I'll stick to a safer topic for my first post!

Low pay - some of you will know that the Socialist Youth Network that I co-chair with Owen Jones is Launching a COalition Fighting Unfair Pay (COFUP) on Tuesday night (and I hope to see some of you there, Cttee room 9 House of Commons)

We'll have a broad range of speakers from trade unionists, MP's, Councillors and local campaigns.

On the same day at 12 oclock the Freemantle care workers in Barnet will be ending a 24 hour strike - this is exactly the reason why we need a campaign to fight for Labour Councils and the Labour Party to have a policy of a decent living wage.

We need to be ensuring that the government stops ignoring workers that are suffering because of Browns privatisation agenda.

Privatisation and the break up of local government has made thousands of workers vulnerable to having their pay driven down in this way and some local politicians then refuse to accept that they are responsible because these are not direct Council employees.

Its not too late to send a message of support to the Barnet Freemantle workers so please do
via John Burgess Barnet Unison

There is also a Rally at the start of the Strike tomorrow at:
Dell Field Court
Etchingham Park
Road
N3 2DY
between
1.30 - 2.30
Nearest tube Finchley Central (Northern Line)