Tuesday

Cancellation!

1) Grassroots Left London Regional Conference - CANCELLED!

Due to proximity to the National Conference on 17th November in Birmingham, a significant number of apologies from our activists as well as a couple of speakers dropping out, we thought it would be a better idea to cancel the proposed London Regional Conference this Sunday, and encourage everyone to try and make it along to Birmingham later in the month.

Apologies for the short notice! We hope to see you all at the:


2) Grassroots Left 3rd National Conference - GOING AHEAD!

Just to avoid any confusion, the National Conference is defnitely going ahead! Please make every effort to attend.

Grassroots Left
3rd National conference
In the Conference Room
At The Comfort Inn 
Station Street, B5 4DY.
Opposite New St Station, Birmingham City Centre
 
Saturday 17th of November 2012  
From 12 noon to 4pm.

 
This establishment is also a short walk from Snow Hill & Moor St stations.
 
This meeting is open to members of UNITE the union, their families & friends. Fellow trade unionists and others who are supporters of the Grassroots Left initiative are also most welcome to attend. Refreshments are available from the hotel bar on the ground floor.

JOIN THE GRASSROOTS LEFT TODAY
SET UP A STANDING ORDER

Monday

GRL 3rd National Conference - Birmingham, Nov 17th

Grassroots Left 3rd National conference
In the Conference Room
At The Comfort Inn 
Station Street, B5 4DY.
Opposite New St Station, Birmingham City Centre
 
Saturday 17th of November 2012  
From 12 noon to 4pm.
 
This establishment is also a short walk from Snow Hill & Moor St stations.
 
This meeting is open to members of UNITE the union, their families & friends. Fellow trade unionists who are supporters of the Grassroots Left initiative are also most welcome to attend. Refreshments are available from the hotel bar on the ground floor.

Wednesday

The March on Ocober 20th 'A bit like the Grand old duke of York'


The Third Grand Old Duke of York Demo:
TU leaders must fight for “needs budgets”!

Enough of the bogus “protecting frontline services”, “caring cuts”, “dented shields” and “cuts too far too fast”!

WE have seen only a fraction of the cuts to come first planned by Chancellor George Osborne in 2010—the total is almost £600 billion, and that is without the readjustments necessitated by the shrinkage of the economy and tax take due to these deflationary policies. So far less than 15% has been implemented.

What are the prospects of the official Labour movement leading a fightback against these vicious cuts? Even if Labour wins in 2015 it will continue these cuts without let-up. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls told the Guardian, “The public want to know that we are going to be ruthless and disciplined in how we go about public spending”. And at the Labour Conference, “we cannot make any commitments now that the next Labour government will be able to reverse particular tax rises or spending cuts.”

And what are the intentions of the trade unions and Labour council leaders, surely they will lead a fightback? They have no intention of doing so.

At a meeting with about fifty of its Councillors, including Council leaders and Labour group leaders, on 12 November 2010 in Leeds Unite newly elected Gen Sec Len McCluskey got Gail Cartmell to instruct them to carry out all the cuts by setting legal budgets whilst hypocritically protesting. Not one balked at this disgraceful instruction. Not a single Labour councillor voted against the cuts imposed in April 2010, despite panic and soul-searching in Lambeth and Hackney. There was no question of setting ‘needs budgets’ to protect the vulnerable against the cuts. Len McCluskey made his usual anti-cuts speech at this year’s TUC but meekly acquiesced to the cuts agenda at the Labour party conference.

Back at the first 500, 000-strong ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ demo on 26 March 2011, just to make sure that he did not whip the troops into a revolutionary frenzy, McCluskey had Unite’s stewards sporting the Ed Miliband slogan “cuts too far too fast” on their hi viz vests. What are the mobilising marching chants appropriate to this inspiring idea; “An injury to one is an injury to one and that’s all, and that’s all”, “cut some not all, cut some not all” and, "cut their jobs, not our jobs, cut their jobs, not our jobs, do dah, dah do dah”? Bureaucrats save their fiery speeches for the big occasion to hide their sell-outs when no one is on the streets.

On 30 November 2011 we had the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ one day Public Sector Pensions Strike. This saw a series of strikes over the whole of the UK. 60% of schools in England were closed and 6,000 hospital operations cancelled as up to two million public sector workers went on strike. Again a tokenistic series of protests, with no follow up to build the movement just as the Socialist party’s “one day general strike” would become if not developed into an indefinite one.

The strangle-hold the TU bureaucracy has on the rank and file of the movement is stronger now than ever. They actively foster the two tier workforce to split and divide us. We saw this in Ellesmere Port, in the London buses and in countless other workplaces; new starters are second class TU members, with lower pay rates and far worse conditions. Almost all left groups do not fight this in any serious way, thus they do not prepare for this impending catastrophe. The National Shop Stewards Network, Unite the Resistance and the Coalition of Resistance cosy up to bureaucrats, left and right, with Len McCluskey’s treachery alibied and excused by all.

To begin the real fightback we must build a genuine rank and file movement in the trade unions, which fights ALL the sell-out bureaucrats by the united front method; ‘with them where possible, without and against them where necessary’. This is the task the Grass Roots Left has set itself. From the foregoing it is clear that we must also bring that fight into the Labour party to being to prepare for the 85% cuts to come and the inevitable political consequences of a Labour government viciously attacking its core supporters as Ramsey McDonald did in 1931.

Labour makes no promise to tax the rich, Balls has not even promised to reinstate the tokenistic 50p rate of tax. He was booed at the TUC promising to continuing the attack on the public sector. Given the dire consequences of the 15% cuts we have already seen the effect of the remaining 85% amount to the total destruction of the welfare state built up since 1945—the NHS privatised and local council no more than paymasters for privatised and decimated services. This will inevitably split the Labour party, despite the apparent weakness of the left there and in TUs right now.
 
Stop marching us up to the top of the hill, only to be marched back down [Or left up there]! 

We must prepare for this by renewing the Labour movement, linking up with those within and outside the Labour party who want to fight. We begin with the core organised working class movement, the trade unions, and from there we must take the struggle into the Labour party. To do this we promote the principles and practices of the R+F in all our areas of work. These principles should include,

a) Democratise the unions!

b) elections of all union officials!

c) Officials to be paid no more than the average skilled worker’s wage!

d) Defiance of the anti-union laws!

e) A steeply progressive wealth tax!

f) Public works at TU rates of pay to give work to the unemployed!

Friday

What happens when 28 construction workers are sacked by EIS on the Crossrail site? The 'Rank & File' fight back!


28 EIS workers sacked on Crossrail project.....
So the 'Rank & File'  fight back!

28 workers including 2 reps have been sacked at the Westbourne Park site for daring to join a Trade union! One of those sacked was a safety rep. Shortly after the sacking there was potentially a very serious accident at the site, when an earth moving conveyor [hopper] collapsed, luckily though no one was injured, this time anyway! 

Since the sackings, and for the last 3 weeks there have been daily pickets at the Westbourne Park site. Please get to the picket anytime between 7am to 1pm. The nearest tube is ‘Westbourne Park’ and the site is opposite the station. 4 or 5 pickets can cause havoc at the Crossrail site, just imagine what 40 or 400 could do!

Remarkably there are those that still say blacklisting is a thing of the past?! But its going on right here right now! So as well as the daily pickets we have had a some great protests over blacklisting and EIS sackings with our comrades in Blacklisted Supporters Group [BSG].

BAM the main contractor at Westbourne Park are one of the biggest ‘Blacklisters’ going. There has been plenty of coverage in the press lately on ‘Blaclisting’ Massive thanks to BSG.
When employers break the law our response has to be. ............................................'CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ALL THE WAY'

Combine meeting? What Combine meeting??

Did you know that there was a Combine meeting on the 3rd October? No? Neither did many of those who did not receive notice of the meeting! So at the meeting on the 3rd Oct there were only 10 in attendance. If you were not informed about the meeting then please send emails/letters of complaint to: Bernard ‘moving forward’  Mcaulay. Email address: Bernard.McAulay@unitetheunion.org

Note: Another combine meeting is planned for November, so make sure you are informed.

Play by the rules? Crown House don’t!

We know that Crown House are still up to no good, so keep the ‘play by the rules’ forms going and also the weekly protests near you, if you can.

National TUC March on October 20th in London

Unite may be assembling at the Head Office in Holborn early on the day, to march to the Embankment. So get your banners out and show the Con-Dems what we think of their cuts!

Dig deep and give generously.

We are appealing to you all to contribute the EIS hardship fund, make cheques payable to ‘Joint Sites Committee’ and send to: 70 Darnay Rise Chelmsford CM1 4XA. Please raise at your workplace/union branch/Trades Council/any meetings or wherever you can. Cheers. 

Finally [and good news], we now have now got a few activists on Unites [construction] Regional Industrial Sector Committees [RISC’s] and the National Industrial sector Committee’s [NISC’s]. Nice one, keep on keeping on eh!!


To get in touch with us by Email siteworkers@virginmedia.com

‘An injury to one is an injury to all : Solidarity forever’