NSSN - NATIONAL SHOP STEWARDS NETWORK
CONFERENCE - SATURDAY - 4th JULY - LONDON

“David Cameron calls the UK “the aspiration Nation”. It is. 
Where once we had rights to housing, healthcare, education, welfare, decent pay and pensions - now we can only aspire to them!”
      - Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary.

The trade union movement - six and a half million strong & growing - is, on the industrial plane, working people’s most powerful weapon in the battle against austerity and the Tory pro-big business government.

The Tories know this - which is why they are preparing to further strengthen existing anti-trade union legislation (left untouched by New Labour during its 13 years in power).

We know it too, which is why TUSC’s sister organisation in the trade union movement - the National Shop Stewards Network - is building its own forces and influence.

The NSSN argues for democratic, fighting trade unions to defend jobs, wages and conditions - and to help inspire and organise those workers not currently in a union.

The 9th National Conference is on Saturday, 4th July. It is open not only to union activists, but also to all those seeking to fight back and organise solidarity and support for people in struggle - whether at work or in their communities.

This year the conference has another marvellous array of excellent speakers.

They include

MARK SERWOTKA, PCS General Secretary,

RONNIE DRAPER, BFAWU General Secretary,

MATT WRACK, FBU General Secretary,

STEVE GILLAN, POA General Secretary,

PETER PINKNEY, RMT President,

HELEN PATTISON, Youth Fight for Jobs campaign,

DAVE SMITH, anti-blacklisting campaigner, and

ISAI PRIYA, Tamil Solidarity trade union co-ordinator.

The conference is from 11am – 4.30pm.

The address is - Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Sq, London, WC1R 4RL

More details can be found on the NSSN website HERE.

SOLIDARITY WITH LOCAL NUJ STRIKE!

We'd like to express our solidarity with our local NUJ members who are on strike to defend jobs and conditions. In Sutton, the picket line can be visited outside the entrance to Quadrant House.

The owners of our friendly "local" south London papers is an international media conglomerate!

We include below, what we said in June last year when a similar strike was underway.

"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!"

ANTI-AUSTERITY DEMO - LONDON

SATURDAY, 20th JUNE, 12 Noon 

BANK OF ENGLAND!

We have been out on the streets supporting this demo. 

We quickly produced 1,000 leaflets which were eagerly taken up by people in Croydon.

The main text of the leaflet is below. See the leaflet HERE.

"We support this national demo initiated by The People’s Assembly & supported by unions and other organisations.

With barely a quarter of the vote of the electorate, the Tory government has no mandate to impose further cuts in living standards, cuts in vital public services and benefits!

Labour failed to challenge the previous government. Their policies failed to win the votes of workers. Labour offered a pale imitation of Tory policies!

So we now have another pro-rich, pro-big business government!

Trade Unions must urgently take a strong lead to organise the fight back. With over 6 million members (and growing) they are a massive potential force!

Unless the Tories are stopped, we will face 5 more years of cuts in services, benefits, jobs and wages.

Labour now offers precious little for workers. TUSC, with other like-minded people, must therefore continue building a strong working class political voice."

DATES FOR DIARIES FOR THE BATTLES TO COME!

The details for National Demo on the 20th of June can be found on The People's Assembly website. TUSC will be there in force - look out for our banners.

The NSSN Conference details can be found here

AFTER THE ELECTION!

TUSC LOCAL MEETING - 3rd JUNE, West Croydon, 7.30pm
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Venue: Croydon Voluntary Action Centre, London Road
Right out of West Croydon station & Centre is 200 metres on right
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SPEAKERS -
Paula Mitchell - TUSC National Steering Committee
with
Glen Hart - TUSC Candidate Croydon North
April Ashley - TUSC Candidate Croydon Central
Pauline Gorman - TUSC Candidate Sutton & Cheam

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The Tories didn’t win this election. New Labour lost it!

Labour leaders offered little of substance to distinguish Labour from the Tories and LibDems - offering no hope and no concrete programme for improving the lives of the vast majority.

And for their part, the majority of trade union leaders remained shamefully silent during this crucial election - offering no counter-arguments against the daily ravings of the right-wing media. Where were they?!

Their members must organise to elect leaders prepared to organise, inspire and fight back. TUSC supporters with other union activists will be in the forefront of that battle!

Many people are now openly talking about the final demise of New Labour. There can be little doubt that shifting further rightward would finish it off.

So the fight goes on! The Tories have no mandate to impose their pro-rich agenda. Of the total electorate they obtained less than 24%. Even of those who did vote, only one out of three people voted Tory! Hardly a ringing endorsement!

In Croydon, workers and young people can expect precious little from the New Labour council. It is so bereft of ideas that it has asked the Bishop of Croydon to lead a commission to come up with suggestions!

In Sutton and Cheam a tweedledee MP has been replaced by a tweedledum one. And Sutton residents are benighted by a council of faceless and self-important place-seekers. Not a socialist amongst them - yet!

So there is much to be done!

Locally and nationally TUSC supporters will be drawing up a balance sheet of the lessons from the elections. At the same time we will be planning for the fightback over the coming period.

In addition to being an opportunity to ask any basic questions you might have about TUSC, the meeting will consider key issues such as:
* What are the key lessons of the election?
* Why building TUSC is vital - in workplaces, local communities, union branches.
* Building TUSC, right here, right now, in Croydon and Sutton!

Hope to see you!

TUSC National Steering Committee Report

We are organising our local TUSC post election meeting. Watch this space for details in the next few days.

In the meantime our national steering committee held its first post-election meeting this week. Here is its report.

- Against the backdrop of a Tory-majority government committed to accelerated austerity, albeit one with the lowest ever share of support amongst the total electorate (24.4%), the need the build on the TUSC campaign to develop a socialist electoral alternative was recognised by all.

The meeting agreed a vote of thanks to all the 748 candidates - and their agents and campaign teams - who contested the elections on May 7th under the TUSC umbrella, polling a combined total of 118,125 votes.

A detailed report of the TUSC results was accepted and is now available, in PDF format, at www.tusc.org.uk/txt/338.pdf

The meeting noted the best parliamentary scores were for Dave Nellist in Coventry North West (1,769 votes, 3.9%) and Jenny Sutton in Tottenham (1,324, 3.1%) but recognised, as anticipated, there was an almost uniform incidence of 'split voting'.

This meant that many voters - in some cities by a four to one ratio - supported TUSC but, afraid of the (now realised) prospect of another Tory government, were only prepared to vote for a local council candidate at this stage.

Most English councils outside of London had elections this year and TUSC fielded a record total of 613 candidates.

The victory of the Southampton anti-cuts 'rebel councillor' Don Thomas was applauded by the meeting. Don was re-elected for his Coxford ward, which he holds with the TUSC national steering committee member Keith Morrell, with a 37.2% share of the vote, exactly 1,000 votes ahead of Labour.

There were also two Town councillors elected on Thursday on TUSC's anti-cuts platform, another sign that the fight around local council services will be a vital part of building resistance to the government.

On this basis the steering committee agreed to organise a 'councillors forum' in July, open not just to TUSC supporters but to any councillor who wants to fight, to discuss the details of how to prepare and build support for no-cuts 'needs budgets'.

A TUSC directory of councils with elections in 2016 - nearly half of which are Labour-controlled - is available at www.tusc.org.uk/txt/340.pdf

The steering committee also agreed to organise a TUSC conference for September 26th to prepare for the 2016 elections, which include the elections to the National Assembly for Wales and the Greater London Authority elections as well as the local council contests (and Mayoral elections in Bristol, Liverpool and Salford).

The Scottish TUSC steering committee will organise a separate conference to plan for the Scottish Parliament elections also taking place in May next year.

TORY VICTORY!...

There will be much celebrating in London’s exclusive gentlemen’s clubs today!

And workers will feel downcast.

Despite 5 years of a strongly anti-working class government (and anti-middle class too, if truth be told), New Labour has utterly failed to rally working class votes to defeat the smug Tories.

Those votes Labour did get were in the forlorn hope that they would help keep the Tories out.

But hope is not a strategy!

The two parties most associated with betrayal - the LibDems and New Labour - were punished.

In Scotland Labour is finished - their open alliance with the Tories during the independence vote was the last straw for the vast majority of workers and young people.

Many people asked themselves - why vote for a party that generally speaking has adopted Tories’  policies? - even some of UKIPs! - I may as well vote for the real thing! 

And UKIP has made gains in Labour strongholds.

That UKIP obtained nearly 4 million votes is a blistering condemnation of the Labour leadership and those right-wing leaders of the trade unions who failed to counter head on the arguments of UKIP that it somehow represents the interests of workers!

Instead of fighting on a clear anti-austerity platform with policies aimed at benefiting working people, they said they would stick to Tory cuts in services!

Labour produced a campaign mug with “Immigration Controls” on it! 

They should hang their heads in shame.

It is surely time now for all those who want to fight openly, as we do, for the interests of working people to join together with TUSC and others to build a fighting party of labour.

Our voice isn’t yet loud enough.

Help us raise it!