One year after breaking into the lobby of Tory HQ at Millbank, on November 9 students marched through London again, the central themes being tuition fees, soaring youth unemployment and the restructuring of higher education.
Attendance was around 8,000-10,000 (though police estimates put it at much less), significantly lower than last year. This should be expected with the National Union … read this post
On Sunday October 2 over 35,000 workers, students, pensioners and anti-cuts campaigners marched outside the Conservative Party conference. This is a sizeable increase from the 7,000 demonstrators at last year’s conference, underlining the growing, yet still sluggish, moves to resist the austerity measures. The conference itself was ringed by steel walls, barricades and hundreds of police. Despite this, the demonstration … read this post
Dave Isaacson reports on the July 9 conference of COR and the limits of the anti-cuts campaigns (first published in the Weekly Worker)
Following on just after a week from the impressive strikes by the PCS, NUT, ATL and UCU unions on June 30, you would have thought that the Coalition of Resistance’s second national conference was well positioned to build … read this post
Ben Lewis attended a workshop on ‘Unions and the anti-cuts movement’ (first published in the Weekly Worker)
It is a shame that the discussion at the workshop on ‘Unions and the anti-cuts movement’ was so brief. Following interesting openings from Joe Malone (Fire Brigades Union), Cat Boyd (Public and Commercial Services Young Members) and Jon Duveen of the National Union … read this post
Hopefully it will be a rather hot autumn, writes Ben Lewis (first published in the Weekly Worker)
The June 30 London demonstration, which made its way from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, through Parliament Square and down to Westminster Abbey, was a lot bigger than I expected. An estimated 30,000 striking workers hit the streets. In terms of the energy and class … read this post
Next time, coordinated strike action by millions, writes Dave Isaacson (first published here)
The strikes in Milton Keynes showed signs of the potential for involving wider layers of workers in future action. Many onlookers were enthusiastic in their support.
Along with other members of the Coalition of Resistance, I visited a number of the PCS union’s picket lines in the … read this post
Callum Williamson reports from Southampton on the day four public sector unions walked out
Thursday 30th June saw the largest-scale industrial action in Britain for decades, in the context of intensifying class struggle throughout Europe and beyond. At the heart of this conflict is an attempt on the part of the capitalists and their governments to make the workers pay … read this post
Unions must reject the terms of debate established by government, media, and Labour opposition, argues Michael Copestake
So the June 30 strikes are upon us, with four teaching and civil service trade unions out on strike against the vicious class-war cuts programme of the coalition government. Although this initial action should be seen as more of a shot across the … read this post
Three CPGB members, two also members of Communist Students attended the Friday June 17th rally organised by the Sheffield Anti-Cuts Alliance (SACA), where rebellious Labour MP John McDonnell was the keynote speaker. Over 150 people turned out, and it was one of those rare occasions when most of the Marxist left in Sheffield could be found in the same room … read this post
James Turley reports on a good day in the fight to build resistance to the coalition’s austerity (first published in the Weekly Worker)
There can be nobody attending Saturday’s mass demonstration against the cuts who left feeling despondent or pessimistic.
The official attendance estimate is in the region of 250,000, with Socialist Worker claiming “well over half a million” (April … read this post
Michael Copestake reports from the steel city
Friday March 4th saw Sheffield City Council sitting in the town hall in order to vote through its package of budget cuts for the forthcoming year, to the tune of some £80 million. Outside the town, in the freezing cold, gathered a crowd consisting mostly of trade unions representing workers in the state … read this post
James O’Leary reports
On Saturday 5th March members of Communist Students joined the march against cuts in Manchester that had been called by Manchester Coalition Against Cuts to protests against this years spending cuts and more specifically the £110 million pounds worth of cuts to services that manchester City Council are set to vote through on Wednesday 9 March, which … read this post
June 30: Bigger, better, more coordinated
Rank and file pressure must be brought to bear not only within the unions, writes Michael Copestake, but on the Labour leadership too
The June 30 strikes involving up to 750,000 public sector workers may only have been for one day, and may only have involved unaffiliated unions, but they gave the Labour tops much pain – a condition that … read this post