Justice for Grenfell - event in Preston 14 June

Manchester Arena bombing - one year on

There are several events taking across Manchester city centre to mark the first anniversary of the terror attack to mark a year since the most devastating night in the city’s history.

Last year’s terror attack at Manchester Arena killed 22 people, injured many more and left the country in mourning.

As a mark of respect to those who lost their lives in the atrocity, bells will ring out from St Ann’s Church, St Mary’s Catholic Church and the Town Hall at exactly 10.31pm this May 22 - the time of the attack.

The solemn moment will be one of several events to mark the first anniversary of the terror attack.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS strike 23-24 May.

UNISON members working at three hospitals in the North West are on course for industrial action over plans to outsource their jobs to a new company, set-up and owned by the NHS trust, in May. Members at the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS foundation trust voted to reject the plans and ask the union for a strike ballot by 93% in a 79% turn-out.

Workers in catering, cleaning and portering will be on strike on for 48 hours on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 May.

Nearly 900 NHS staff who work in estates and facilities across the trust’s three hospitals are threatened by the plan to outsource them to the wholly owned subsidiary company, WWL Solutions. They are worried that their terms and conditions could be cut, that new starters will get inferior pay and pensions, and that they could all ultimately be moved to a private-sector company.

UNISON North West regional organiser Sean Gibson said the consultative ballot had shown staff members' "deep concern" at what he said were damaging proposals. "Good quality catering, cleaning and portering services are all crucial to the efficient operation of the hospitals and to the experience of patients. The staff performing these roles form a key part of the NHS team and they should remain in the direct employment of the Trust – not pushed away into an outsourced separate company.

"The bosses’ plans are designed to cut costs at the expense of staff and could lead to back door privatisation. We don’t want the likes of a Carillion or a Capita to be getting more involved in our NHS."

Supporters are invited to visit the picket lines at the three hospitals in Wigan, Wrightington, and Leigh.

Mostly from the UNISON website.

Show support to Acas conciliators striking this week

A strike by PCS members working as conciliators at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is set to go ahead on Friday (11 May).The members are striking to protect their jobs and services.

As there has been no movement on the issues from Acas management since the action short of strike began on 25 April, then regrettably PCS members are forced to go ahead with the planned one day strike on 11 May. PCS remains available for talks and we very much hope to be able to settle this dispute.

Our conciliator members are taking industrial action in a long-running dispute over the imposition of detrimental changes made by ACAS management. They have been taking action short of strike since 25 April and unless management improves its position, they will be taking further strike action on 6 and 7 June.

The imposed changes include the downgrading of conciliation work and unacceptable and unmanageable workloads. The imposition of a change programme, together with the excellent decision in 2017 to overturn fees for access to employment tribunals, have meant that conciliators are struggling.

Show your support
There is a rally to support the strikers and the PCS pay campaign from noon on Friday (11 May) at Piccadilly Gate in Manchester.

Donate to the strike fund: cheques made payable to the PCS BEIS hardship fund can be sent to the BEIS group treasurer at 9 Medina Way, Upper Stratton, Swindon, SN2 7NW or money can be transferred to Unity Trust bank account 20240992 sort code 60-83-01.

Send messages of support to: Leeds@pcs.org.uk

Find out more about the dispute.

McStrike - They're Not Loving It

McDonald’s workers in Manchester are going on strike on International Workers Day (1 May 2018). They are standing up for a living wage of £10 an hour, guaranteed hours and for their right to a union to be respected. They need your support. Please attend their demonstration and picket to show that Manchester backs the workers.

When: 
      Midnight picket at 00:01, 1 May 2018
      Morning Picket at 07:00–08:00, 1 May 2018
Where:
      McDonald's, 36/38 Oxford Road, Manchester M1 5EJ
What:
      Picket and Demonstration - attend the McStrike picket.

The workers in Manchester will be picketing the store at midnight as the strike starts and in the morning. Please click 'Going' on the Facebook event to show you will be attending at either time.

Read the article on the Socialist Resistance website.

Join the 100th week of fighting for Chorley A&E

Solidarity with rail workers

Figures from RAIB (the Rail Accident Investigation Branch) show that 80% of the deaths and the most serious injuries in the last six years occurred on DOO (driver-only operated) trains, even though such trains account for only 30% of all trains in the UK. 

Solidarity with rail workers on strike for safety today.

Support privatised workers - sick pay rights removed

Important news from Unite:

ISS facilities staff provide vital services to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospitals, cleaning our hospital wards, transporting patients around hospital departments and cooking for patients, visitors and staff. Yet when they are ill and unable to come to work, they are being denied access to a fair sick pay scheme unlike that available to NHS workers and ISS workers at other trusts.

The Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust outsourced the facilities management to ISS. The staff went from being NHS staff, to contractors on inferior terms and conditions. Their sick pay was reduced to 12 days, meaning that those who are the most seriously ill and most in need of time away from work - workers suffering from illnesses like cancer, heart problems, or physical injuries - are the people who are faced with the difficult decision of either working when unfit to do so, or facing severe financial difficulties due to not being paid.

The time has come to say 'enough is enough'. ISS workers are understandably upset at being treated as second-class workers within the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen hospitals.

A collective grievance containing over 270 names was submitted to management calling for the full sick pay scheme to be reinstated. However, ISS management have repeatedly ignored all attempts to discuss this issue with Unite officials and to bring this to a resolution. We will not allow the fight for fairness to be ignored and call on the communities of Liverpool to support the ISS workers;

Please support our campaign for a fair sick pay scheme for ISS workers:

• Sign our petition calling on ISS to negotiate with the staff and their reps.
• Contact your MP or councillor to ask them to support our campaign.
• Spread the word: ask your friends and family to support the campaign.

Click here for the petition, which you can print off. Completed forms can be either scanned or photographed and e-mailed to Irene Emery at Unite (Irene.Emery@unitetheunion.org) or posted addressed to Irene or Dave Kelly at:

Unite the Union, Jack Jones House, 2 Churchill Way, Liverpool, L3 8EF

31 August pay protests across the North West

PCS members in the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Revenue and Customs are gearing up for our payday protest on 31 August to put pressure on management and the government to scrap the 1% public sector pay cap. 

Please do your best to turn up and show your support.

Home Office
◈ Liverpool
Protest from 12.45pm outside the main entrance of the Capital Building in Old Hall Street and by Disclosure and Barring Service members at 12pm outside Shannon Court on Princess Parade. MPs
◈ Southport
Petition signing activities at the passport office, Trafalgar Road, Birkdale.

Revenue and Customs
◈ Bootle and Netherton:
Members’ meeting at 12.15pm at ‘The Jollys’ on Marsh Lane, for staff in The Triad and Litherland House with NEC speaker Clara Paillard.
Members’ meeting at 1pm in the car park at St Johns House.
Members’ meeting at 1.45pm at Santander Social Club for staff at Comben House.
◈ Liverpool
Protest from 1pm at the Victoria Monument, Derby Square in the city centre.
◈ Manchester/Salford
Joint protests/photo opportunities by R&C Greater Manchester branch and Salford Revenue branch at 1pm outside Crazy Pedro’s in Bridge Street and at 5pm outside The Egerton Arms in Gore Street.

MOJ
◈ Lancashire and Cumbria
Burnley County Court, Reedley MC and Blackburn County are planning to hold a lunchtime photo op/protest.
◈ Manchester
Lunchtime protest outside Manchester CJC at 1pm, photo ops at Manchester Minshull Street and Asylum Immigration Chambers.

Hitler: Nazi or Alt-Right?

Heather Heyer, murdered in Charlottesville

I recently looked up the term 'Alt-Right' as I wasn't certain what it meant. Obviously I realised it had something to do with Far Right politics, but what did it mean specifically? It turns out it is short for Alternative Right, which, according to Wikipedia, is 'a loosely defined group of people with far-right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in favor [sic] of white nationalism, principally in the United States, but also to a lesser degree in Canada and Europe'. The term is attributed to Richard Spencer, an American white supremacist who is president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank.

The recent events in Charlottesville in Virginia, where Heather Heyer was killed and nineteen others injured by a murderous 20-year old bigot deliberately driving a car into a crowd of people, show us that the street thugs are not so mealy-mouthed about describing themselves. Swastikas, Hitler T-shirts and placards, KKK outfits, Confederate flags, flaming torches, Nazi salutes and chanted Nazi slogans could leave no one in any doubt about their political role models.

In the face of such overt demonstrations of their allegiances, why does the media use the term Alt-Right? This is a euphemism coined by those who seek to intellectualise Far Right hatred with the aim of bestowing upon it some utterly fraudulent respectability. The pseudo-science of racial biology has long been abandoned, not for politically correct reasons, but because there was simply no scientific evidence to support it.

Similarly, Far Right injunctions against homosexuality have no rational basis and are justified with reference to the Old Testament. This is despite the instruction in the New Testament to "Love your enemy", but bigots who base their prejudice upon religion tend to ignore inconvenient Biblical directives. Whatever other qualities the Old Testament may have for believers, it cannot be viewed as a scientific treatise.

It is clear that attempts to justify Far Right politics will fail any genuine rational examination, but that is irrelevant to those who are determined to believe what they want to believe, especially when it reinforces their pre-existing prejudices.

By using the term Alt-Right, the media is inadvertently granting the Far Right precisely the element of respectability that the promoters of the phrase wanted to achieve. It is a euphemism that obscures the reality of a world view based on hatred. Except that their actions and attitudes are so vile, one could almost feel pity for anyone who has become enveloped by such a loathsome mindset, but we must never forget they have a choice: there was no predestination that made being a bigot inevitable. As Charlottesville has shown us, some people, faced with the same environment, have come to different conclusions.

Let's call them what they are: Nazis, fascists, racists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, homophobes, white supremacists, misogynists and thugs. It's not as though we're short of accurate terms.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

Unite Against Fascism - oppose the EDL in Rochdale

This Saturday - 29 July

Meet at 12.30 pm on Saturday at Yorkshire Street near Poundworld, Rochdale OL16 1JW.

A week after the fascists of Britain First demonstrated in Rochdale, another group of Nazis - the EDL - will be making an incursion into the town this Saturday, 29th July.

Unite Against Fascism, trades unionists and others will be protesting for the second week running, to send a clear message to the EDL that they are not welcome in Rochdale.

The EDL is a fascist organisation. Their founder, who goes under the alias 'Tommy Robinson', was a member of the British National Party. Other leading EDL figures have also been members of the BNP.

Join us on Saturday 29 July at 12.30 pm in Rochdale town centre to show for the second time in a week that fascists are not welcome in Rochdale.

For more details, please contact northwest@uaf.org.uk.

Join the anti-Tory demo in October!

Driving trains is so easy 'a woman could do it'

Pauline Cawood (left) with Ruth Kelly in
2008 (picture from ASLEF website)

During a government discussion about train strikes, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond asked why there aren't more women train drivers, seeing that the job is so simple that "even they can do it". Apparently even the prime minister took him to task over the comments.

Pauline Cawood, an ASLEF official who has been a train driver since 1998, said it was an "old-fashioned, sexist comment. He ought to be ashamed of himself. Women are just as capable as men at driving trains."

In 2008 Ruth Kelly, at the time Transport Secretary, accepted an offer by Pauline to ride in her cab to learn about trains first hand. Afterwards she commented: "I really enjoyed it. I was struck by the level of training involved and the concentration required."

Labour MP Jess Phillips said: "Philip Hammond has disgraced himself with this remark, as well as managing to insult half the country's population," adding later on Twitter: "People will say it's nothing, just a joke. Women were entirely missing from his industrial strategy & his budgets make poor women poorer. The two things are connected. It's not a joke when a women's worth and value changes our economics."

It is interesting that at a time when the RMT is campaigning for passenger safety, a senior Tory can happily indulge in cheap, sexist jibes to try to belittle the skills and professional abilities of people who routinely take responsibility for the lives and safety of hundreds of people.

The RMT is lobbying Merseytravel at Mann Island Pier Head on Monday 17 July over driver only trains. Assemble at 12.30pm. Send a message to Labour councillors that their first responsibility is to support the trade union and public demand for safety before profit. More details here.

News just received: RMT's meeting with Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram over the Merseyrail guards' dispute, which was due to take place Monday 17 July, has been rescheduled for Monday 24 July‎. The lobby is also postponed, new details will published when known.

................................

Hammond's sole professional experience of transport was 17 months as Secretary of State for Transport under David Cameron. He is not known ever to have driven a train bigger than a Hornby Dublo.

Neville Grundy
ARMS

Oppose Driver-Only Trains, Tory/Council Cuts and sign RMT petition

TUSC (Trade Union & Socialist Coalition) news release:

Support the RMT's call to lobby Merseytravel at Mann Island on Monday 17 July at 1pm, gather at 12.30 p.m.

Late news (added 16.7.17): RMT's meeting with Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram over the Merseyrail guards' dispute, which was due to take place Monday 17 July, has been rescheduled for Monday 24 July‎. The lobby is also postponed, new details will published when known.

The general election result reflected a popular surge in support for Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity alternative. It has sent out the clearest possible message that the British people have rejected the Tory programme of cuts, austerity, privatisation and division and there is no mandate for diluting safety on our transport services by imposing driver-only trains.

Labour's city region mayor and Labour Councillors on Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Transport Committee should immediately lift the threat to guards on Merseyrail trains and stand firm in the face of any opposition they may incur from the Department of Transport.

TUSC decided not to stand candidates in the general election and to campaign for a Jeremy Corbyn-led government, but the Blairites have not gone away. They are preparing to mount another attack on JC and his supporters; they are especially strong amongst Labour councillors who continue to implement cuts.

TUSC will campaign for the Tories to be forced out of government before the next set of local elections in May 2018, and for Labour councils to stop implementing cuts even if the Tories are clinging on. TUSC calls on Labour Party members to deselect any Labour councillor who intend to continue making cuts, and to replace them with candidates willing to defend local public services.

P.S. Please sign the RMT letter to lobby your local MP about driver-only operation trains - link here.

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For further information contact: 

Daren Ireland on 07787128498 ~ Dave Walsh on 07969511796 ~ Tony Mulhearn on 07939098455

Unite Building Members Start Month of Strikes

Unite members formerly employed by Manchester City Council's direct works department, now outsourced to the private company Mears, are about to start a month long strike over pay and conditions.

Full details are contained in Unite's press release - click here.

This is an incredibly important strike by workers involved in a crucial industry. It is vitally important that all unions in Manchester rally in solidarity with them. The union asks all delegates to send messages of solidarity to these workers in their struggle and to support the strike in any way they can.

Serwotka's Call to ARMS

Merseyside ARMS declares its full support for the call of Mark Sewotka for a 1-day general strike of all Public Sectors Workers to break the pay cap being maintained by this illegitimate Tory government.

Mark made the call to great applause at the Tories Out demo on July 1st 2017.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

The latest terrorist atrocity

A personal view.

There's politics, and there's fanaticism. I want the world to be a better place for the majority, which is why - one way or another - I've been politically active in my own very small way for most of my adult life.

I cannot understand driving vehicles into strangers, or stabbing people you do not know. I do not see how anyone can be brought to believe these are justifiable actions.

There are terrible injustices in the world that should be rectified, but killing random strangers will not do anything for them. We must not be selective in our condemnation: far more innocent civilians have died in attacks in the Middle East in recent weeks: for instance, at the same time as the latest attack in London, dozens of civilians were killed in Mosul while fleeing a district held by Da'esh. Their lives are not worth less than our own fellow citizens.

These fanatics want the majority in the UK to revile the Muslim people who have chosen to make this country their home - not forgetting that some Muslims in this country are second generation or more: this is the land of their birth just as much as it is mine. The killers are deliberately trying to stoke Islamophobia. They want us to stop living alongside the Muslims in our midst and instead turn against and revile them. They hope that our Muslim neighbours will then be provoked into joining Jihad. They are deluded, but that alone won't stop them. The sight of a bishop, a rabbi and a Muslim cleric standing side by side after the Manchester killings will not make them think twice.

The correct response is obvious: we do not rise to the bait. We stand by all members of our communities who share our abhorrence of such directionless violence - regardless of faith or ethnic origin. It won't be easy, and our own white fanatics will be making racist capital out of what has just happened. It is the duty of all decent people not to let them dictate our responses to these atrocities.

Neville Grundy

ARMS

Manchester bomb - Muslim Council of Britain responds

PCS conference pays respects to victims of Manchester terror attack

There was a minute's silence at the start of PCS conference yesterday to remember those killed in the attack at the Manchester Arena on Monday night. At least 22 people, many of them children, were killed and dozens more injured as they left a concert at the venue. Our president Janice Godrich shared our union's thoughts on the attack in a statement she read to delegates:

"Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrific attack and their families, those who have lost friends and loved ones, and with all those affected by such sickening violence. We utterly condemn this abhorrent attack against innocent people, many of whom were young children. Today, we grieve for those who have lost their lives so tragically.

"We pay tribute to the dedicated emergency services and public sector workers who responded so selflessly and professionally last night, and who continue to work tirelessly to keep us safe at all times. Our union stands in solidarity with the people of Manchester against such appalling violence, and for peace and unity. We reject absolutely the hate and division that drive terrorist attacks like this, and reject all forms of prejudice and intolerance peddled by a violent minority in the aftermath of such incidents.

"We are strongest when we come together and we urge our members to take part in memorial events and to express their sympathy with the victims and their families."

From the PCS national website.

RMT - DOO trains talks collapse

Talks aimed at ending the Merseyrail guards' dispute collapsed yesterday when the company flatly refused to discuss the RMT's compromise solution to the issue of Driver Only Operation (DOO) trains.

Arguments that DOO trains are just as safe simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Figures from RAIB (the Rail Accident Investigation Branch) show that 80% of the deaths and the most serious injuries in the last six years occurred on DOO trains, even though such trains account for only 30% of all trains in the UK. If technology such as CCTV is beneficial, it should be operated by a crew member who can give it their full attention, not someone who needs to concentrate on staying on the correct side of a red signal.

Roger Bannister, TUSC Liverpool region mayoral candidate, condemns Labour councillors for their complicity in the cavalier attitude of the company. He is also appalled by Steve Rotheram's failure to intervene to support the RMT in their objective of ensuring the safety of the travelling public. This can only be seen as a clear sign that he will preside over guards being withdrawn. Roger calls for continuing support for the rail union’s determination to protect all passengers.

Roger will be addressing a pre-election public meeting on Tuesday 2 May at 7.30 pm in the Liverpool pub, James Street, Liverpool, L2 7NS.