New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights

[by Beth Granter, Brighton Wednesday branch]

(Picket of Tory MP Ann Widdecombe's anti-abortion meeting 6 February 2008, photo Paul Mattsson)

Women's sexual and reproductive rights have taken quite a beating in recent weeks. The latest assault comes at the hands of Tory MP and education minister Michael Gove.

He has launched the government's new Sex and Relationships Education Council. All nine "sex and relationship education providers" represented on the council are either pro-abstinence faith groups or anti-abortion education, or both.

LIFE, which opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest, has been newly appointed, whilst the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), with over 40 years of experience of providing sexual health services including abortions, has been kicked off the council.

Reactionary MPs Nadine Dorries (Tory) and Frank Field (Labour) have tabled amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill to require women seeking abortion to receive mandatory counselling from 'independent' organisations.

BPAS called the amendments "misguided and unnecessary". Clearly, Dorries and Field believe women to be incapable of making independent decisions about their bodies without first having to endure 'independent' advice including from anti-choice Pregnancy Crisis Centres. The amendments give no regard to existing counselling services and risk increasing obstacles to abortion.

Earlier this month another Dorries' bill, proposing abstinence teaching for girls aged 13-16 in particular, passed its first reading in parliament with support from the Conservative Christian Fellowship. The bill positions women as the gatekeepers of sexual intercourse and disregards the equal responsibility of men. Abstinence teaching has never been proven to have any positive impact on unwanted teenage pregnancy or Sexually Transmitted Infections rates.

A motion was passed at last month's PCS civil service union conference for PCS to campaign against the bill and to re-affiliate to Abortion Rights. Socialist Party members have been leading a growing campaign against the bill, which you can join at http://facebook.com/stopdorries. It was working class struggles that led to the 1967 Act which legalised abortion.

Each of these actions have been positioned by the government as being in the best interests of women, while their truly ideological impetus is the capitalist drive to reduce services offered to working class single mothers, benefit claimants and NHS patients.

As socialists and feminists we must fight back against every attack the Con-Dem government makes against our human rights, to protect and build upon what previous campaigns have achieved.

Come to our branch meeting this Thursday to discuss the issue and the feminist movement from a Marxist perspective debating how class is impacting all on our rights:

8.15pm Thursday June 9
at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

For more Marxist feminism check out this site: http://marxistfeministbrighton.wordpress.com/

It Doesn't Have To Be Like This! Women and the struggle for socialism public meeting

Join the Thursday branch for an important discussion about class society's oppression of women, the unjustified tsunami of oncoming capitalist cuts aimed at working class women, and how we can organise to fight back to win a lasting victory for the emancipation of women in Britain and worldwide.

Join the Facebook event page here.

It Doesn't Have To Be Like This: Women And The Struggle For Socialism by Christine Thomas.

Cuts: Do we have no choice? Fighting the cuts in Britain and Greece

Join us at 7pm Friday 8 October

at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

Massive cuts in public services loom over Britain. The government wants to make 25-40% cuts in public services. They are being told to do this by the very financial markets that caused this mess, and continue to enrich themselve...s at our expense. However not a whisper has been made in protest at this by any of the main parties! Labour councils in Britain are implementing Tory/Liberal cuts saying they have no choice.

If they were against the cuts they would refuse to make them, instead they just apologise for doing so, and promise they will be different in office if elected again. We, on the other hand, say that councillors must refuse to make these cuts. They must not pass any cuts budgets, and should campaign to plug the gap in public spending handed to them by the Government.

Across Europe governments are using the financial crisis caused by the banking sector as an excuse to slash public services and lower workers living standards. Greece has been at the forefront of those attacks and has seen the most active resistance amongst ordinary working people who refuse to pay the debts of capitalism. There is much anti-cuts campaigners can learn from the actions in Greece and unions joining up across Europe is going to vital in every country. Mitsos Helaris will be speaking on the Greek movement and the growing international resistance to the bankers crisis.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition stood in the General Election pledging to, if elected, refuse to make the cuts. Our candidate, Dave Hill, pledged to take only the average workers' wage, not the huge salaries other MPs take without flinching! The Socialist Party and Socialist Resistance, key supporters of TUSC, are hosting this meeting.

Do we have no choice but to make the cuts? Do councillors have the choice to resist them? If no party pledges to do so, can we build a party of the working-class that will?

PUBLIC MEETING - ALL WELCOME

Click here to join the Facebook event and to find out more...

Keep Our Post Public campaign!

7.30pm Thursday October 7 at the Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton

Come along to the campaign PUBLIC MEETING to hear the case against the privatisation of our publically owned postal service and how we can defend this vital service. Organised by the CWU. Sign the petition here...

Click here for an archive of socialist articles on defending our postal services...

Brighton Benefits Campaign public meeting tonight!

7pm Thursday 23 September at Friends Meeting House
Ship Street, Brighton

The Brighton Benefits Campaign has been organising the fight back against the regressive and brutal assault on welfare rights by government since before the general election. It is a vital campaign defending working class communities from the unjustified threat of being made to pay for an economic crisis we did not create with an attack on our already meagre benefit system.

While the capitalist bosses lay off hundreds of thousands to ensure they continue to profit, their representatives in government attempt to seize from us the very hard won rights to a decent standard of living when capitalism fails to provide us work.

Get along to this meeting to hear Caroline Lucas and Andy Richards introduce a discussion on how we can halt this attack.

Click here to join the campaign Facebook group and here to click through to their excellent website for more information.

Brighton Stop the Cuts launch success

Over 200 people packed into Friends Meeting House in Brighton on Thursday 9 September to launch a community-wide campaign against the neoliberal cuts.

Speaking from the trade union movement, Chris Baugh (PCS) and Andy Richards (Unison) dismantled the received wisdom of reducing government debt through cuts and highlighted the vast long-term costs of cutting key public services and forcing thousands into unemployment and below the poverty line.

Chris Baugh called for united action within the labour movement, citing the need for greater organisation and recruitment, and for unions to develop links across the public sector and with local communities.

Ümit Ozturk from the Mediterranean Resources Network delivered a cutting refutation of Cameron's "Big Society" double-speak, describing it as a new battle in the war between the hungry and the greedy.

He emphasised the need for community organisations not to be coerced into self-censorship by the tightening of the purse strings.

An academic analysis of the cuts was provided by Oxford economist, Andy Kilminster, who cited evidence from the last century of British history to convey exactly why the cuts are unnecessary, highly ideological, and if permitted to proceed would wreak further havoc in the economy.

Caroline Lucas MP arrived late from parliament and delivered a message of unity whilst describing the cuts as an attack on the 'living wage'.

This point was emphasised by Brighton Benefits campaigners who called for employed and unemployed workers to unite, describing how cuts to welfare are intended to 'soften up' the labour market by driving the unemployed into destitution and desperation.

Pete Offord from Brighton Socialist Party welcomed the huge turnout and argued for a strategy to pressure the local councillors not only to reject the cuts but to propose an alternative budget that reflects the needs of ordinary people, and to wage a campaign for the difference in funding to come from the government.

Drawing on the example of Liverpool City Council in the 1980s, he pointed out that if no Brighton councillors are willing to stand up for the people who elected them, Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition should consider standing its own candidates who will.

Angry Connexions workers described the appalling effects that planned cuts to their organisation would have for disadvantaged young people, whilst cuts to the meagre mental health budget were slammed by the NHS Support Foundation.

With the hall packed to bursting, activists lined the walls and aisles to participate in this launch event.

Organisations were welcomed to send delegates to plan for the European Day of Action against the cuts on 29 September.

Check out the Brighton Stop the Cuts Facebook page for more info and to get involved in the fightback.

Unite against cuts! Come along to the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition launch meeting!

Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition launch meeting
7.45pm Thursday September 9
Friends Meeting House, Ship Street, Brighton

Speakers:
Caroline Lucas Brighton Pavilion MP
Chris Baugh Deputy General Secretary PCS union
Alex Knutsen Brighton and Hove Unison secretary
Andy Kilmister economics lecturer
Umit Ozturk Meditereanean Resources Network

...plus plenty of time for everyone in the audience to ask questions, discuss and debate how we can organise and take action to put a stop to these unjustified cuts to jobs and communities.

In Britain today our public services are under threat as never before as the government begins to push through the biggest cuts in the public sector ever seen. This will affect millions of people and nothing is safe. In fact health, education, welfare and above all the worst off in our society will be hardest hit.

In Brighton it is workers who support some of our most vulnerable children and frontline health care staff who are first in the firing line. We are told these cuts have to be made and we are ‘all in it together’, but this is not true. The government is using the financial crisis, caused by banks and speculators, to push through its political programme, breaking up the welfare state and privatising the public sector.

The Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition is supported by Trade Unions, campaign groups, political parties, voluntary and community groups. Come along to our public meeting to hear the argument against the cuts - and how you can become part of the campaign to stop them.

Join the Facebook event group for the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition launch meeting here.

For more information contact Phil Clarke on 07709 696561 or email brightontradescouncil@gmail.com

Public meeting! LGBT struggle - pride, prejudice, fightback and hypocrisy

Come along to our meeting featuring a discussion on the history of the struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights introduced by Socialist Party LGBT national organiser Greg Randall. Click here for details on Facebook...

8pm, Thursday 12 August at the Phoenix Community Centre, Brighton

Pride started 40 years ago as a political demonstration for gay rights. London Pride 2010 on 3 July was a carnival, with politics only at the fringes. The gay establishment claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have "arrived" after legal reforms, such as civil partnerships and equalisation of the age of consent, left nothing to fight for.

Welcome as law reforms are, they do not give LGBT people liberation. Laws against racial and sexual discrimination have been around for 40 years but racism and sexism have not disappeared.

Both anecdotal evidence and police figures show an upward trend in homophobic attacks, bullying in schools is still rife and in many communities being gay is still something that it's safer to keep quiet. Click here to read on...

Public meeting tonight! Fighting the cuts: how Liverpool's socialist city council took on Thatcher and won!

Come to the public meeting to hear Hannah Sell, Deputy General Secretary of the Socialist Party, speak about the Liverpool struggle in the 1980s and the lessons for today.

8.15pm Thursday 24 June, Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

When faced with central government funding cuts the 47 Socialist Liverpool Labour councillors opted to refuse to put the cuts onto the shoulders of ordinary working people and poor. Instead they sent a budget to government which represented the needs of ordinary people.

As a result of a mass campaign in support of the Liverpool council policy, with 20,000 demonstrating in support of the council's stand in December 1983, the government caved in and allowed the extra funding to go to Liverpool. With it the council built 5,000 council houses, built nursery schools, parks, community leisure centres and created thousands of jobs, all at a time when Thatcher and the Tory government were undertaking a massive attacks on the lives of millions of working class people right across the country in the interests of capitalism.

Liverpool's 47 socialist councillors adopted the slogan of "Better to break the law than to break the poor". They were the only council who succeeded in extracting extra funding from the then Tory government. They relied on the labour movement to support them in their campaign and were a crucial part of this victory.

A similar situation faces local councils today. Massive cuts - even worse than Thatcher's according to Nick Clegg! - are on their way. The local council has a choice; take the "Liverpool road" and resist the cuts, opting for a needs budget instead of a cuts budget. Or make the cuts and devastate the lives of thousands of workers, youth, unemployed, pensioners and all who rely on public services in Brighton.
Contact us via this email address visit the Facebook event page here to get in touch online...

For an online background to the struggle in Liverpool check out http://www.liverpool47.org/ or pick up a copy of the book Liverpool: A City That Dared To Fight from our bookshop.

Brighton socialists go digital! Sign up now!

Keep up-to-date with all the local trade union and socialist news and events by signing up to our new Twitter service and Facebook page. And let us know if you've got news you'd like us to share with an email, comment or tweet.

This Thursday's branch meeting features a discussion on web activism and how the revolution in communication and technology can help the working class today... 8.15pm 17 June at the Phoenix Community Centre, Brighton

Know your rights! PUBLIC MEETING!

Support meeting for ex-Telegen staff and all call centre workers

This Thursday 3 June, 7pm
Kemptown Crypt, underneath St George's church, St George's Road, Brighton

From Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council and Youth Fight For Jobs

On Friday 21 June up to 400 workers at call centre Telegen were made redundant without any notice, due to Telegen going into liquidation. This has had a big impact on their lives. They are now owed a minimum of two weeks pay, and it is up to the creditors to decide how much they will receive.

Brighton and Hove Trades Council and Youth Fight for Jobs have called this meeting to give advice to the workers and launch a campaign to get call centre workers into trade unions. A speaker from the PCS Trade Union Young Members Network will be answering questions on workplace and redundancy rights.

This meeting will be part Q&A, part an explanation of the benefit of being in a trade union and part a rally to say to young workers and workers generally; how many more job losses must we face in Brighton and Britain as a whole?

In the words of one ex-Telegen worker "It is disgusting the way they have treated us. Employers take us for granted; they see us as numbers not people. We have food, rent and bills to pay but they don’t care. They think we are disposable.

"We want our wages and we want them soon! We want compensation for the worry and difficulties we have been through, especially the people who have lost their homes. We want the books to be opened and we want to see where all the money went. And we want to know why they lied to us, and why the Directors couldn’t face us themselves?"

International Women's Day! 100 years

Public meeting: Feminism today
6-9.30pm Wednesday 10 March
Falmer House, Room 126 at the University of Sussex

This is a joint meeting of Brighton and Sussex Socialist Students to celebrate 100 years of International Women's Day. These days it seems International Women's Day has become little more than a glossy promotional event for "women friendly" businesses or at best a vague "celebration" of women's achievements. Yet its roots 100 years ago are in the socialist movement of the early 20th century and it quickly became a focal point for the early struggles of working class women internationally for better working conditions, for the right to vote and against the oppression they faced as women. All welcome.

Click here for more infomation...

PUBLIC MEETING: What can the workers do? 6pm Wednesday 9 December, Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

6pm Wednesday 9 DecemberPhoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

The local hub of the trade union movement has called a public meeting to discuss the job cuts taking place across the city.

Brighton, Hove & District Trades Council, alongside the campaign group Youth Fight for Jobs, is inviting all workers and their families to the afterwork meeting being held at 6pm Wednesday 9 December at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton.

Across Brighton & Hove working people are being threatened with redundancy as workplaces close down. It is getting harder than ever to find work in Brighton and Hove.

As well as Lloyds, Borders and Threshers shutting, Brighton council is looking to lose 150 workers and Sussex University want to axe nearly 200 jobs.

If not challenged companies will try to make job cuts on the cheap even when they are half-owned by the taxpayer.

However, time and time again it has been shown that strong unions can and do make a positive difference when jobs are under threat.

General secretary of Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council Bill North said: “As the local offical body of the trade union movement it is important that we join together to help all workers facing job cuts and attacks. Our collective strength has a huge positive impact in defending working people against these unjustified job losses. We need to get organised against job losses and for job creation and this meeting provides us with an opportunity to discuss how we can work together to win the best deal for all workers.”

Sarah Wrack from Youth Fight for Jobs, a youth-led campaign which held a 1,000-strong march and demonstration in London last month against youth unemployment, said: “Nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are already facing years on the dole because of this crisis of capitalism. In Brighton a majority of these jobs cuts are once again expected to be dished out to young workers already struggling to pay back massive student debts as well as trying to live, eat and keep warm. We urge all young workers to attend this important meeting to find out what can be done to rescue a future out of this mess.”

CONTACT DETAILS:

Brighton, Hove & District Trades Council

07709 696561

secretary@lewes-eastbourne-and-wealden.nut.org.uk

Youth Fight for Jobs

07984 027754

brightonyouthfightforjobs@gmail.com

http://www.youthfightforjobs.com/

Facebook: Brighton Youth Fight for Jobs

PUBLIC MEETING: Troops out of Afghanistan!

8.15 pm Thursday 29 October at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

October 2009 marks the eighth anniversary of troops being sent to Afghanistan. It is clearer than ever that the invasion has resulted in a nightmare for the people of Afghanistan and the region and those sent to fight.

Come and hear a socialist perspective on the conflict and discuss ideas.

For more background on the Socialist Party's viewpoints on the war in Afghanistan click here.

TIME FOR A NEW WORKERS' PARTY! PUBLIC MEETING: THIS SUNDAY

Are you fed up with the vile way New Labour has sold its soul to capitalism to join the Conservatives and Lib Dems in attacking working people with cuts, job losses and privatisations? Are you sick of being fed false promises by big business-backed MPs from the capitalist parties who have their greedy fingers in the trough of public money? Are you angry at the lack of any politic alternative to this mess caused by capitalism that heaps all the suffering on working people?

Join trade unionists, socialists, youth campaigners and activists who are also fed up with this situation and who are organising to do something about it.

This public meeting follows on from the end of the protest against New Labour and will feature speakers from the trade union movement on what can be done to offer working people the real democratic and accountable political voice that has been missing for so long.

Public meeting: 3pm Sunday 27 September
at the Iron Duke, Waterloo Street, Brighton (50 metres from rally end)

SUPPORT THE VESTAS WORKERS! PUBLIC MEETING: THIS THURSDAY

Come and find out about the inspiring battles that workers are undertaking against
the unjustified attacks on jobs, pay and conditions. With a speaker from the Vestas
workers' committee plus contributions from the Visteon car parts plant occupation,
Brighton bin workers/street cleaners’ in dispute with the council and Brighton
Housing Trust workers fighting to defend their pay and their jobs.

Meet 7.30pm Thursday 24 September
Friend's Meeting House, Brighton

For more information on the Vestas workers' battle click here...

Join the fightback against youth unemployment

Upcoming Youth Fight For Jobs events:

Gig night!

Chairman Wow plus many more...
7.30pm Wednesday 8 July
Latest Music Bar, Manchester Street, Brighton

£1 entry on the door, under 18s welcome

Public meeting
On why the BNP have no solutions for young people

7.30pm Thursday 9 July
Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

For more information check out www.youthfightforjobs.com

Meet your No2EU-Yes to democracy election candidates!

Come along to our local No2EU-Yes to democracy public meetings where you can ask your questions and meet your workers' candidates for this years' European election taking place on Thursday 4 June.

Thursday 28 May, 7pm, The Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton
Monday 1 June, 7.30pm, St John's Church Hall, Cross Keys, Crawley Town Centre

Find out more about at no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com and www.no2eu.com

PUBLIC MEETING: WEDS 18 MARCH - Youth Fight For Jobs campaign launch!

[By Sean Figg, Youth Fight For Jobs national co-ordinator]



Come along to the local Youth Fight For Jobs public meeting.
6pm, Wednesday 18 March at the Phoenix Community Centre, Brighton
(See the map in our lefthand column)

Bailouts for the bosses... and therapy for the workers! This is the latest bizarre initiative from Labour to deal with recession in Britain.

Admitting the inevitable human wreckage that will be wrought by mass unemployment and house repossessions, New Labour ministers Alan Johnson and James Purnell will bring forward millions of pounds earmarked for mental health services.

According to The Observer, ministers fear an "anxiety epidemic caused by the recession" among "people facing unemployment, debt and relationship breakdown". Before the credit crunch hit last year, these pro-big business ministers were exuberant in their overstatement of the universal benefits of free-market, deregulated capitalism. Now, in the face of the complete and utter failure of their neoliberal experiment, the understatement of the barbarity being inflicted on workers and their families is breathtaking.

To help us cope with the anxiety of losing our livelihoods and our homes, we will be offered walk-in therapy centres. There, we will be encouraged "to look more at potential solutions than the causes of [our] difficulties". This approach clearly suits New Labour ministers - a major 'cause of our difficulties'!

The evasion of any responsibility by these creatures seems to know no limit. New Labour politicians portray the economic crisis as outside of their control, as something we have no choice other than to endure until 'things pick up'.

Prevention is usually considered better than cure. Compared to New Labour's gimmicks it seems old-fashioned advice. Fred 'the shred' Goodwin - the banker that ran RBS into the ground - lost his job recently. Does anyone think he will be visiting a walk-in clinic with feelings of anxiety? With a £16 million pension pot that seems unlikely. He has a future of certainty. Creating some certainty about workers' future would be the best way to tackle 'recession depression'.

There are far more effective solutions to dealing with workers' anxieties than encouraging us to 'think positively' while hundreds of applicants queue to apply for one job.

A government that really wanted to do something about anxiety would tackle the causes, not just the symptoms. Immediately halting all house repossessions would be a good start. A commitment to nationalising failing industries in order to safeguard jobs would help as well. So would sharing out work with no loss of pay, the guarantee of a living income for all and the cancellation of student debt.

Although New Labour and the other mainstream parties are willing to keep the banks on endless life-support, workers cannot expect the same high-quality treatment.

Workers need to get organised and show that we're not nervous wrecks yet! That's why the Socialist Party is marching on the G20 as part of the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. We understand the cause of our problems - the capitalist free market and pro-big business politicians.

Now we need to fight for our future. Our solution - getting organised and fighting for a democratic socialist society!

See Youth Fight for Jobs campaign including details of the march for jobs on Thursday 2 April.

South East Shop Stewards launch meeting

[By Phil Clarke - Lewes, Eastbourne and Wealden NUT Secretary (personal capacity)]

Nearly 40 trade unionists attended the launch of the National Shop Stewards Network in Brighton. Organised by local Socialist Party members to get the network started, reps were present from various branches of NUT, UCU, Unison, RMT, GMB and both halves of Unite. 

The meeting heard from Socialist Party industrial organiser and NSSN co-organiser Bill Mullins about the recent Lindsey construction worker strikes and went on to discuss how to build a network of shop stewards in the local area.

Many of the contributions focused on the lack of political representation for the unions and how they could be broken from Labour. The Campaign for a New Workers' Party was raised and many reps signed the declaration including a member of the RMT national executive.

A small committee of volunteers was put together at the close of the meeting who will now focus on building the network, particularly across South East bringing in unions not present, such as the CWU and FBU, as well as getting plans together to support the upcoming UCU strike at Sussex Downs College in Lewes, Newhaven and Eastbourne on the 24 and 25 March.

It is also vital in our area that we begin to organise more shop, call centre and financial workers as it is likely that it will be these groups who will be hit first and hardest by job losses in the town.

It is clear that the Socialist Party in Brighton, which has grown rapidly over the last few years, is really sinking roots in the local labour movement and will be at the forefront of efforts to defend workers from the effects of the recession.

For more information contact Phil Clarke on 07709696561 or visit www.shopstewards.net