SOLIDARITY WITH SUTTON NUJ STRIKE!

Sutton and Croydon TUSC would like to express its solidarity with the strikers at the Sutton Guardian and elsewhere, who are on strike due to job cuts caused by corporate "efficiency" drive.

Below is a short piece we published on our Facebook page a few weeks ago about who owns the "local" Guardian.  Here is a report in the Guardian newspaper.

"The Sutton Guardian is our “local” paper. The Croydon Guardian does the same for Croydon. 

You might fondly imagine that both are community based papers, concerned for the people of Sutton & Croydon, holding the local powerful to account, and keen to expose local shenanigans in the Council and other places (we are not, of course, implying there are any). 

However, both “Guardians” are owned by Newsquest Media Group. The third largest local paper producer in the UK, with 300 titles. 

Newsquest itself was set up in 1995 when New York buy-out firm KKR spent £210 million of largely borrowed money to buy UK Reed Regional Newspapers, from Elsevier.

After selling various pieces of this publishing mini-empire and buying various pieces from other media groups, such as Pearsons (who own the Financial Times), the “refreshed” company was sold, in 1999, to Gannett Inc, for £920 million - suggesting a very a tidy profit.

KKR is Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts. Before they set up their buy-out operation, they all worked for Bear Stearns in New York. That’s the firm that went bust early in 2008, helping precipitate the global financial meltdown.

Gannett Inc is the ultimate owner of the Guardian. Gannett’s fatuous byline (which most firms seem to want to have these days) is, - “Its all within reach.”

Its headquarters are in Virginia, USA. Amongst other things, the corporation owns 43 television stations. Its total assets are worth around 7 billion dollars.

The Sutton Guardian, The Croydon Guardian: as local as any other subsidiary of a global corporate behemoth!"

CALLING ALL ACTIVE TRADE UNIONISTS!

The annual conference of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is on Saturday, 5th July just 5 days ahead of what could be a multi-millioned strike against austerity and wage cuts!

Venue - Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn.
Start Time - 11 am.

Speakers include - RMT President, Peter Pinkney;  Bakers’ Union General Secretary, Ronnie Draper;  POA Gen Sec, Steve Gillan;   PCS President, Janice Godrich;  and Ginger Jentsen from the highly successful $15 NOW! minimum wage campaign in Seattle.

The $15 NOW website is - www.15NOW.org

The NSSN website is - www.shopstewards.net

Local TUSC Groups Build on Election Work

Click here for a report from the national TUSC on how local groups are now being established up and down the country - and preparing for Election 2015!

New Sutton and Croydon TUSC Branch!

We had a very successful “inaugural” TUSC meeting last night (11th June)!  We agreed to set up a permanent Sutton and Croydon TUSC branch!  

After a thorough discussion about our first, and very positive electoral challenge in May, and about the lessons learned, everyone enthusiastically endorsed the idea of setting up a branch. We felt this was a vital step if we are to offer a strong, and local, socialist alternative - not just in elections (crucial though they are) but also in the industrial and community struggles that occur in the boroughs.

If you want to fight back against austerity, racism, poor housing, poverty wages, unemployment and cuts in local services and the NHS - JOIN US!

Our new email address and our mobile number is below, at the bottom of this post.

We agreed to purchase a Sutton and Croydon TUSC banner. And to kick off our post-election street activity, our first street stall (hopefully with banner!) will be on Croydon High Street at lunchtime on FRIDAY, 4th JULY. Watch this space for further details.

We also agreed to start a campaign to pressure councillors to deliver REAL improvements for the people of Croydon and Sutton. Needless to say, we have very low  expectations! The LibDems in Sutton, and so-called “Labour” in Croydon hardly measure up! But they shouldn’t be allowed to have a quiet life on comfortable councillor expenses! 

Instead, the purpose of the campaign is to expose their hypocrisy and double-talk, and to highlight to local people that there is a working class, fighting alternative. 

To begin with, as individuals, we will write to each councillor in each of our wards. We will be asking them to say, explicitly, that they will support particular policies and proposals - of the kind that TUSC councillors will themselves be putting forward in due course.

For example, 

- will you, councillor, support an immediate RENT FREEZE for three years, in all flats and houses under the council’s control - including housing associations and similar?

- will you put forward a motion to implement, and enforce, A DECENT MINIMUM WAGE (say £10 an hour) for all council employees and sub-contractors?

- will you support an immediate HALT TO ALL ALL CUTS in jobs and services in the borough?

- will you propose in council that the borough’s very healthy reserves are used to kick-off a SUBSTANTIAL BUILDING PROGRAMME for truly affordable houses and flats? 

(These reserves are around £260 million in Sutton! and around £400 million in Croydon!)

If you are reading this, why don’t you also write to your local councillors along these lines? If you'd like a sample letter, or if you’re not sure who your local councillors are, contact us (see below) and we’ll send you some material.

We are also considering a monster petition along these lines.

Our next BRANCH meeting will be on 9th July. 

Our email address is - SuttonCroydonTUSC@gmail.com

Our mobile number is - 07732 638 728

Building the TUSC after the election!

The location of this important meeting is barely five minutes walk from Sutton Station.

On exiting the station, turn left, then turn second left on Cedar Road (after the second row of shops). The Friends Meeting House is 100 metres on the right.

How to defeat the right!

In this article, Seumas Milne almost argues the case for TUSC, but without mentioning us! Every soft left commentator is now saying that unless Labour adopts socialist policies, the far right will benefit.

He makes some very good points about UKIP - and the fact that the far right have NOT done well everywhere.

This is what he concludes, "only by putting the case front and centre for a complete break with the policies that got us here – through public investment, a crash housebuilding programme, workplace protection, rebuilding public services and a living wage – that the poison can be taken out of migration. If Labour doesn't do it, the Tories will find their own way to draw UKIP's sting".

But Labour will not do it! It has said it will not do it! Only the TUSC has these policies at the core of its programme!

Well done RMT and Mike Harding!

RMT Tube union official Mark Harding found not guilty of charges relating to picketing, brought under a raft of ant-union legislation.

Legislation that "Labour" has no intention of repealing!

See RMT site here.