Tony Benn and Roy Bailey: Coming to Eastbourne

Saturday 14th April, 7.30pm at the Birley Centre (Eastbourne College) as part of the Eastbourne Festival

The Writing On The Wall is a collaboration between two eminent and respected socialists.

Tony Benn, now in his 87th year, is Britain’s longest serving MP. Famously outspoken and often controversial, he spent 50 years in parliament, many of those on the front benches. Roy Bailey also has a career stretching over 50 years as a folk singer and, in that time, he has appeared all over the world. He has been described as one of folk music’s finest carriers of the people’s message and interpreters of both traditional and contemporary song.
Together they present a performance of writings, speeches and songs taken from the words of socialists, radicals, chartists, suffragettes and revolutionaries that illustrate nearly 1,000 years of campaigning for justice, freedom and equality.

Tickets £21.50 and £18.50 only from the Hailsham Pavilion (01323)841414
http://www.spyboy.co.uk/

Save Community Learning at Sussex Uni: Sign the Petition

The UCU branch at the University of Sussex reports:

"Sussex UCU regrets the proposal from the university management to end large parts of continuing education and community engagement activity in the Centre for Community Engagement.

Sign the petition here

The management’s proposal will deprive local adult students, especially older and second chance learners, of opportunities not otherwise available to them and does not reflect the university management’s often-stated commitments to community engagement, widening participation and learning opportunities outside traditional hours and locations.

Continuing education and community engagement have a long and illustrious history at Sussex. Recently CCE has produced novelists, archaeologists, supported community volunteering, put on public events, engaged with efforts to promote sign language in support of deaf communities, and engaged with teachers and young people through Creative Partnerships schemes. It has also provided full-time and visiting students with access to disciplines such as archaeology that are not otherwise covered by mainstream departments.

CCE has led the way at Sussex in terms of widening participation amongst non school leavers, such as: ethnic and minority groups, refugees, disabled people, people from socially deprived areas and deaf communities. This has been achieved during the last 18 years by a range of European funding which continues to the present.

The decision to close all non-ISS courses and the running down of the Centre in recent years puts dedicated and innovative staff at risk of redundancy, that could be avoided, and at a time of rising unemployment. The management’s proposals appear to have the unintended consequence of forcing the cessation of activities which are not loss making, because all non ISS staff are proposed for redundancy.

Sussex UCU will be fully engaged in consultations to protect staff and students and we urge the university to explore financial opportunities such as those mentioned above for supporting CCE, its staff and its valuable and distinctive educational and community provisions. Enquiries to Kate Edwards at ucusussex@sussex.ac.uk "

Sign the petition here

Are You Working for Free ?

The government's own statisticians, the Office of National Statistics, has revealed that British workers are undertaking £29 billion of unpaid overtime each year. The TUC has used the figures to estimate that a record 5.26 million people worked unpaid overtime last year, worth £28.9bn to the UK economy.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

"These figures shine a light on the valuable but too often unrewarded extra hours that UK workers put in every week. Employers should do more to recognise the unpaid overtime that their staff do, which contributes £29bn to the UK economy every year.

But while average hours are falling across the economy - both as a result of the recession and changes in working practices - UK workers are still doing the third longest shifts in Europe, with only Austrians and Greeks working longer. Smarter working practises and an end to pointless presenteeism would help make staff more productive and get a better work-life balance."

The TUC promotes Work your Proper Hours Day every year- you can read more at the website here.

Support musicians and entertainers working in the West End

Parking charges from the City of Westminster Council may not seem of much interest to Eastbourne trades unionists, but, as raised by Musicians Union delegate to Eastbourne Trades Council Roy Martin at the last meeting, the decision to impose steep parking charges is having a hugely detrimental effect on gigging musicians and other entertainers from across the South East.

The London Evening Standard reported that an independent study by respected independent City forecaster the Centre for Economics and Business Research predicted that introducing the evening charges would cost the West End's economy £800m and would lead to the loss of 5,100 jobs. Tory-run Westminster council did not carry out its own economic impact research before it rubber stamped the new restrictions on 1 August.

A demonstration against the proposed Westminster Parking Charges took place in London’s West End on Thursday 2nd December. Despite the rain and the cold, MU members from West End shows such as Wizard of Oz, Legally Blonde, Ghost, Blood Brothers together with orchestral players and BBC Concert Orchestra members turned out to leaflet the public and raise awareness of this imposed tax on employment and entertainment. Union officials were joined by Equity officials, casino workers and a defiant arrival from the Motorcycle Community all to join forces in this process. Lord Richard Bradford on behalf of the restaurant industry and Labour Leader Paul Dimoldenberg added their support.

All trade unionists are encouraged to show solidarity with their MU and Equity colleagues as well as the many other workers in the West End whose livelihoods are threatened by this move.

Save our BBC

After the announcement of a massive package of cuts – termed in typical BBC-speak Delivering Quality First (!) – we now know the scale of the assault on the UK’s public service broadcaster.

The cuts, which will do irreparable damage to the corporation if allowed to go ahead, include slashing 2,000 jobs and proposals that will led to a reduction in quality journalism and programming across the BBC. This represents a 20 per cent cut over 5 years – in addition to the 7,000 jobs already lost at the BBC since 2004.

News content at the BBC is being disproportionately hit and there are bleak plans to cut local radio, investigative journalism and the Asian Network. Despite all the BBC’s public pronouncements on becoming less metropolitan and more regional in its approach, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are facing severe cuts to jobs and services as are the English regions, especially local radio and news.

The National Union of Journalists is calling on trade unionists to support the campaign, by writing to their MP, and by taking part in the BBC's online consultation, here.

You can visit the NUJ's campaign site here.

Media Coverage of the Strike

Good media coverage of the action and the rally in Eastbourne.

• Online slide show of photos from the Herald


• On strike day, the Gazette ran a significant feature on Trades Council secretary and NUT official Dave Brinson


• Feature from Unison, looking at the impact of the changes on low paid workers.


• Also, local MP Stephen Lloyd (former speaker at the Trades Council) says that the Government is offering a "reasonable" compromise, and is offering "even more money" (they aren't!)


• School Closures listed in the Eastbourne Gazette. More than half of East Sussex schools were completely shut.

The Eastbourne Herald of 2nd December reported that its online poll suggested that 51% of readers supportted the strikes. The same issue also contained a bitter and ill-informed article by Anne-Marie Field, suggesting "More attitude, less gratitude." Very few Trade Unionists will agree that asking to receive the pensions that we paid for in good faith throughout our working life is asking any sort of favour !

Eastbourne says "Hands off our Pensions"

A huge turnout of public sector workers and our allies from private sector staff and retired workers attended the Trades Council organised rally at Eastbourne Bandstand on November 30th.

Originally, the plan had been to meet at the top level of the bandstand and then march down to the Unite Eastbourne Centre for a rally. However, by 10.30 it became visibly apparent that there was no way even half of those assembled could fit into the Conference Hall. So, thanks to some portable PA equipment (provided by Calvin Prior of Calvin Prior and the Riderbacks) an impromptu open-air rally was staged at the bandstand.

Trades Council Secretary and NUT Executive Member Dave Brinson opened the proceedings, welcoming the huge turnout from a range of local unions.

As well as the teachers' unions NUT, NASUWT and ATL, support staff, local government and health workers from Unison, GMB and Unite, civil servants from PCS and university and college staff from UCU, there were banners from specialist unions such as the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, the Society of Radiographers and the Association of Educational Psychologists. We were joined by Head Teachers from the NAHT, taking action for the first time in their history, and school inspectors and advisers from Aspect. Most heartening was the significant support from private sector staff who were not on duty that morning, but had come along to show solidarity.

Dave pointed out the fact that the Government continues to refuse to revalue the schemes, to tell us how much of our money is in the pot. He told the crowd that "...I have a small savings product, and when I go to the bank, they tell me how much is in it, how it's doing, and what fees they are taking. Why will the Government not show us the same courtesy ?"

He ended with a plea to all those assembled not to let the Government and the tabloid press paint this as a public vs private conflict. He quoted from the excellent research by the National Pensioners' Convention showing the appallingly low level of the state pension in comparison to other European countries, and the attacks on occupational and private pensions in recent years.

Finally- he invoked Ricky Tomlinson's Jim Royle character in response to the allegations of "gold plated pensions" citing the average woman worker in local government who will retire on just £2500 a year. "Gold plated ....?" he asked. The crowd were able to finish the Jim Royle-style sentence !

Sharon Wentworth and Gordon Dyer spoke on behalf of private sector workers in Unite the Union, expressing firm solidarity. Gordon told the crowd that we had a "neo-Thatcherite Government declaring war on working people"

Christine Lewis and Dave Fellows from Unison spoke, along with a colleague from PCS. The 500+ crowd then marched through the town centre to the Town Hall, with Gordon Dyer proudly leading the march under the Trades Council banner.