Recent Articles
From Pie Factories to Academies
Last year at RF Brookes, a pie and pizza factory in South Wigston, it was announced that four hundred of their 720 employees would be made redundant (in two phases in September 2011 and June 2012). Under the ownership of Premier Foods, the first set of lay-offs went according to plan, with workers paid two […]
Fight back against cuts to the NHS
Press release Leicester Socialist Party is hosting a public meeting on Wednesday 2nd October at 7.30pm in The Red Tent, Pocklingtons Walk to discuss the attacks being made to the NHS. Workers from local hospitals will give first-hand accounts of the threats posed to services. The number of ambulance stations in the East Midlands is being reduced from […]
HMRC Nursery Protest in Leicester
Yesterday, concerned parents and PCS union members took part in a lunchtime protest against the abrupt decision by HRMC management to terminate their contract with Nippers Nursery, a private sector nursery provider. Similar protests took place around the country with HMRC nursery’s also being axed in Manchester, Wolverhampton, Leeds; Nottingham, Blackburn, Cardiff, and Glasgow. […]
Mining Argos’ Ruling Class
Last week some 1,200 workers took four days of strike action at four of Argos’ key regional distribution sites. This was in opposition to Argos’ decision to end their final salary pension scheme. If management does not back down, more industrial action will certainly be forthcoming. Given the recalcitrant nature of such ruling class managers, […]
Argos Strike in Lutterworth
The UNITE picket line outside the Argos distribution centre at Magna Park, Lutterworth was well supported, with workers taking shifts to cover it round the clock. Passing lorries, nothing to do with the dispute were hooting their horns as they drove past the big UNITE banner. Parish Patel, UNITE regional officer said: “Our members feel […]
Industrial Dispute Timeline for Argos
July 2008: On 17 July Argos workers in the Unite union launched a strike against an insulting pay offer of 3.8%, and the employer’s attempt to move them from weekly to monthly pay without any compensation. After a solid start to the strike it was eventually called off when Argos management revised their earlier pay […]
Save Glenfield children’s heart unit!
About a hundred and fifty people gathered at short notice on Saturday 8 September to show their opposition to the proposed closure of the children’s heart unit at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. In a very noisy protest, cars hooted their support as the chanting protesters marched up and down Belgrave Road. The march was organised […]
Lonmin Revisited
In South Africa the Lonmin struggle continues… with autopsy reports of the police-led massacre now conclusively demonstrating that “most of the people were fleeing from the police when they got killed.” If this was not bad enough, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) even initiated proceedings to use ‘common purpose’ Apartheid-era legislation to prosecute 270 of […]
Atos and the Ruling Class
According to their web site, “Atos is an international information technology services company with annual 2011 pro forma revenue of EUR 8.5 billion and 74,000 employees in 48 countries.” In addition to being major sponsors of the Paralympics, their UK business division, Atos Healthcare, “makes big profits out of removing disabled people from benefits through […]
TUSC and the crisis of political representation for ordinary people
In the 1990s under Tony Blair, the Labour Party abandoned even the pretense of socialist ideals by getting rid of the ‘socialist’ Clause IV. Internal democracy within Labour has also been dispensed with completely (although it had been under attack from Kinnock, with the witch-hunt of Militant). Labour are now as much a party of the rich […]
