Publicity schedule up to Feb 29 / Minutes 16 feb 2012

ANNOUNCEMENTS

NHS Actions

– Saturday Simon Hughes office lobby 10-12am

– March 7: TUC backed Rally to save our NHS. Lobby at Westminster Idea to have a human chain around St Thomas’. Lambeth SOS has backed it. Come one come all and spread the word.

Connexions, national careers service, in Brixton on Acre Lane is shutting at the end of March. There’s a petition against the closure to sign and circulate. Unison is working on campaigning against it and lobbying the council.

Press release and website statement coming.

London Region RMT invited SOS to speak to them. Next Thursday evening – Couple of people are going. Anyone else who wants to go is welcome to join.

BUILDING FOR FEB 29 COUNCIL BUDGET LOBBY

Lambeth Pan Disability Forum are mobilizing for it. South London DPAC and Lambeth Accessible Transport will join us.

UK Uncut are really keen to support the town hall demo – putting lots of publicity and info on it

PUBLICITY

Please sign up to join in the comments as well to spread the word out! Postcards, flyers are available at the UNISON office.

TUBES

Stockwell: Tuesday, Feb 21 – 4:45-6pm

Oval: Wednesday, Feb 22 – 4:45-6pm

Kennington: Thursday, Feb 23 – 4:45-6pm

Brixton: Friday, Feb 24 – 4:45-6pm

Anybody is welcome to join or do any other time or station, please add a comment or use the discussion email list so that we don’t duplicate effort!

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Lambeth Save Our Services launches People’s Assembly

Stuart King reports on the May 21 Lambeth Peoples Assembly (with thanks to information from World to Win reporters)

Over 130 people came on a hot spring day to the first formal meeting of the Lambeth Peoples Assembly held in the Town Hall. As Ruth Cashman the first speaker pointed out, the first assembly had taken place when we occupied the council chamber in Lambeth the night they passed the cuts budget.

On the day a wide range of trade unionists and people from local organisations, including disability campaigners, librarians, pensioners, transport and health workers, students and lecturers gathered to establish the Assembly as a focal point for the struggle against the cuts.

Ruth Cashman, a Librarian and Unison member, explained the series of vicious cuts being pushed through by Lambeth, resulting in park rangers being sacked, crucial Library staff being made redundant and school crossing patrols cut, putting children’s lives at risk. Hundreds of redundancies were being pushed through across the council at a time of growing unemployment.

Starting a theme that ran throughout the day Ruth said that the Labour councillors were carrying out the coalitions dirty work and trying to blame the Tories for the fact that they were too cowardly to stand up and fight with their own communities.

John McDonnell, MP told the Assembly: 
“There has been nothing resembling the current cuts since the 1930s, a time when recession turned into a full-blown Depression. Then people said, ‘Never Again’ and hence the welfare state was set up, but now this is being axed.”

He noted that Britain was one of the richest countries in the world, and yet in his own constituency some people forced off disability benefits, often by simply making a mistake on a form, were now having to rely on food packages to survive.

“It is important to share and compare experiences and decide on what actions to take,” he said. “It is crucial to visualise the kind of society that we aspire to.” He called for a build-up of actions to bring down the government.

Lambeth councillor Kingsley Abrams was cheered as the only Labour councillor in Lambeth not to vote for the cuts. As punishment, the Labour Party had suspended him for six months, now seemly reduced to three due to pressure from the new national leadership of UNITE.

Sarah Tomlinson of the Lambeth National Union of Teachers explained how changes to teachers pensions meant paying much more in, while working longer, into your late sixties. She also reported on a struggle against a planned local “free school” backed by Tory education minister Michael Gove, which would take more resources from Lambeth’s underfunded secondary schools.

RMT member and train driver Arwyn Jones, from Morden depot, spoke of his victimisation and summary dismissal after a strike on the Northern Line Underground. While the threat of strike action had led to the re-instatement of a sacked colleague, London transport had reneged on a promise on his case and now the RMT was balloting again for strike action.

THIS SAT: Lambeth People’s Assembly Against the Cuts

Saturday 21st May | 12pm – 4pm | Assembly Hall, Acre Lane, London SW2

Lambeth Save Our Services has called a People’s Assembly as part of the campaign to fight the cuts to services in Lambeth.

Our libraries, children’s playgrounds, schools, NHS services, elderly peoples’ provision are all under threat of the axe. Local people are fighting back.

The Lambeth People’s Assembly will be both a festival of resistance and an organising centre to exchange experience and plan for action.

The event will take place from 12-4pm at the Lambeth Town Hall. Join us! and spread the word! Please let us know you’re coming via facebook. You can also download a poster for the event.

Update: Provisional Agenda

1. Intro (start time 12.00 noon)
The Cuts: where we are nationally and locally (1 hour). Short introduction then open floor

2. Stand-up anti cuts routine (start time 1.15pm)
(to be confirmed) (20 mins)

3. Workshops (start time 1.45. pm) provisionally six proposed (45 minutes)
1. Education
2. Housing
3. Disability and other benefit cuts
4. Health
5. Pensioners
6. Libraries/recreation/Youth services

4. Music/refreshment break (start time 2.30pm – 30 minutes)

5. Organising the communities (start time 3.00pm)
No platform just short intros from floor on how cuts are effecting particular groups and fighting back: disability groups, women, UK uncut Barac, Smiley Culture.

6. Conclusion and declaration (start time 3.30pm)
John McDonnell, Ted Knight summing up how we take Peoples Assembly forward, short written declaration. (30 minutes end at 4.00pm prompt)

Saving Childrens’ Services

We are now facing the myriad of cuts as they come through thick and fast, devastating everything we have fought for and built over the years. The community meeting was the first step in fighting the cuts to youth services.

Everyone in that room on Tuesday night said things far more powerfully and beautifully that I could do. Here are some of the highlights I jotted down (and apologies for sketchy notes and no pictures!). I felt immensely proud to be part of this community as I sat and listened:

“It’s so cynical how the council is running things down, they know young people can’t fight back and can’t vote. The council is saying they are protecting front-line services but they are not at all protected. We are not open tonight, we might not be open tomorrow night.”

“The kids at Max Roach are a family, they stick by each other. This will break down this family, the spirit and unity of the community. As a single parent my son doesn’t have a male role model, but black role models are exactly what the centre provides, they make sure our sons have something to aspire to. If people don’t stand up and fight together nothing will change, and things will just get worse.”