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Women of the Working Class

Written by Mal Finch, Women of the Working Class was adopted as the anthem of the Women Against Pit Closures campaign during the miners strike of 1984/85. The spirit of working-class resistance and self-reliance represented in the song is needed now more than ever. This song needs to be heard again far and wide.

"We don't need government approval for anything we do/We don't need their permission to have a point of view/We don't need anyone to tell us what to think or say/We've strength enough and wisdom of our own, to go our own way."
 

Opinion & Letters

Southern Cross: profiteers don't care

Have others been following the results of the near-bankruptcy of this major player in the private sector ‘for profit’ care homes business in Britain? In addition to major changes of ownership and some home closures causing disruption to the residents, the Guardian 17 June reported on the company’s current proposals to slash the already poor working wages and conditions of it’s staff on top of cutting some 3,000 jobs.

Graphed: strike days versus inequality

High-res version here.

1. Labour call in the International Monetary fund (IMF), marking the end of the post-war setttlement and the beginning of rising inequality. This came despite several years of the TUC agreeing to hold down pay.

2. Workers respond with a wave of strikes, many of them unofficial. These culminate in the ‘Winter of discontent’ in 1978/9.

3. Thatcher’s Tory government smashes the workers’ movement, leading to a dramatic fall in strike days and a corresponding rise in inequality.

Graduates taking more low-skilled jobs

University leavers are increasingly taking low-skilled jobs, according to new research. A study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that 6 months after graduation around 40% of 2010’s graduates were “underemployed” in lower-skilled jobs, up from about 30% in 2006. The information casts further doubts over the controversial tripling of tuition fees, which provoked mass demonstrations across the country at the end of last year, as well as a spate of university occupations.

Industry focus: problems in the postal service

Len, a postie from the South Coast writes about the effect of ‘modernisation’ in the Royal Mail, which looks bad for workers’ health and safety and bad for the service - all run by what a computer deems ‘optimal’.

A programme of revisions has been divided into three phases. In our medium sized delivery office we are now in week five of our revision using the “new delivery methods” (NDM).

These new delivery methods are high capacity trolleys (HCTs) with one postie pushing up to 105 KGs, and shared vans (2 posties in a van taking all the mail with them and using golf type and sized trolleys to deliver on foot in a loop from the back of a van). All bikes will be scrapped - even if they are more efficient, cost effective or better for the health of the workers.

Dingle community keeps up the fight for Shorefields

Teachers at Shorefields College in the Dingle have once again taken strike action against the possibility of the school becoming an academy. The latest day of action has seen the fight grow, with support staff in the GMB walking out alongside teachers from the NUT and NASUWT.

The picket line was well supported. Parents, teachers and support staff were joined by several pupils from the school - whilst members of the Merseyside Network Against Fees and Cuts, Liverpool Trades Council and Liverpool Solidarity Federation were amongst those who turned up in support. The Liverpool Socialist Choir also added a bit of noise to the event, providing lively renditions of workers and trade union songs, old and new.