Saturday the 25th of February saw six members of the North London Solidarity Federation hold a successful stall on Kilburn High Road. Donning hi-vis jackets emblazoned with SF logos and armed with a large batch of “Stuff Your Boss” workplace rights leaflets, we felt ready to face the Saturday shoppers.

We had some extremely useful conversations with members of the public, many of whom were facing attacks on their working situations and had felt let down by their trade unions. We also spoke to many of the non-unionised retail workers who stock shelves and scan barcodes in the shops which line the high street. Predictably, they had abysmal working conditions and many employees seemed genuinely grateful for the workplace rights leaflets, some taking extra copies to give to their workmates.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have predicted that 725,000 public sector jobs and up to 900,000 private sector jobs will go in the next five years, as a result of spending cuts and the VAT increase. While some will go through retirement and natural wastage, a lot more workers will be facing redundancy. Here is a brief guide to the law around it.

Redundancy happens when an employer ceases to carry on its business, or stops or diminishes some part of its business. The law covers England, Scotland and Wales, with different legislation in Northern Ireland, though its provisions are similar.

For a worker to be made redundant, their dismissal has to be attributable to the reduction in employees. It doesn’t need to be motivated by a company in difficulties, any reorganisation that results in fewer staff will be a redundancy.

Picket of the Tory Local Government Conference Queens Hotel, Leeds:
WYSF were joined by Leeds AFed, the Save REMPLOY Factories Campaign (GMB/Unite) and the SWP picketing the conference. Approx 20 of us took part (supported by even more police inc horses :) ). Had a great response from the public with busses, taxis, council workers, private workers and individuals all honking horns in support as they passed. Big thanks to all who turned out and prob see you all tomorrow for the TUC rally.

Workfare means unemployed people being forced to do unpaid work for their benefits. Tens of thousands of people are being forced into unpaid work, household name firms are profiting from free labour and disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefit. Workfare began under Labour with the New Deal in 1998, which became the Flexible New Deal in 2009. It is now being expanded by the Conservative-Liberal government under a number of different schemes including: ‘Work Experience’, ‘Mandatory Work Activity’, ‘the Community Action Programme’, ‘Sector Based Work Academies’, and ‘the Work Programme’.