11:30 - Assemble at the Pier Head (Derby Square is an alternative for those wanting to take a slightly shorter route or if the weather is bad on the waterfront)
12:00 - March from Pier Head, James Street, Derby Square, Lord Street, North John Street, Victoria Street, Roe Street, Lime Street
1:00 p.m. - Rally at St George's Hall including speakers and music from Ian Prowse (Amsterdam/Pele) and Connie Lush.
Get on the N30 Battle Bus and help support pickets around the city and rally support for the march leaving the Pier Head at 12pm As well as having a soundsystem we will be joined by the Liverpool Socialist Singers!
If you want to join the bus, we will be leaving from the UCU Offices on Oxford Street at 7.45am, and people will be there bannering-up the bus from 7 - and people can join the bus at the different stops.
Sir Ian Blair, ex Commissioner of the Met Police was meant to give a talk at Sussex university last night, but faced disruption from students - see the report below.
This morning the weekly protests got very lively as the rank and file electricians occupied the Grattes Brothers HQ. With only a few days left of the ballot for strike action, we gathered at 6.30 outside the gates of the building site at Kings X. Electricians and supporters leafletted the workers going in and there was a short attempt to block the gate but the police kept a pathway open so people could still go in to work.
Workfare is a growing problem, as demonstrated by recent stories of a number of supermarkets had volunteered to be providers for the scheme and that young people were providing 30 hours a week of unpaid labour. This presents a problem both for the claimants trapped by this scheme, essentially as slave labour, and for the providers' workforce who are being undercut by those doing their job at practically no cost. Equally worrying is that, despite the growing anger over government attacks and emergence of anti-cuts groups across the country, nothing is being done to challenge this.
The big November 30 strike is drawing near. Rents and prices are rising, unemployment is going through the roof and at the same time wages are falling, benefits are slashed and people are being kicked out of their homes. The NHS is being sold-off while public services are decimated, schools and universities wrecked and the poor excluded. Officially these strikes are about pensions, but we all know it’s about a lot more than that.
We'll be keeping this post updated with plans for Brighton as we get them. So far:
A3 Posters are still available from the SF Publicity Commission via brighton[AT]solfed.org.uk. Flyers are available from the Publicity Commission, but a print-friendly (black on white) pdf of the flyer is also attached below. Poster pdfs are also attached.
Courtesy of our friends at the Brighton Benefits Campaign, what follows is a list of companies in Kent, Surrey and Sussex that have taken advantage of mandatory work placements through the Government’s Work Programme in which unemployed people are forced to work without pay. The placements are arranged by a private company called Avanta Enterprise Limited:
The Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and Solidaridad Obrera (SO) trade unions met on 17th October last with the aim of continuing along the path towards unity of action, mobilization and the General Strike.
