Unite members at Optare in Yorkshire returned to the picket lines on 16 November for the first day of their now escalated four-days-a-week strike at the bus manufacturers. Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Party Threats from the police to fine strikers if they continued to picket, citing the new Covid restrictions, had prevented picketing, until the…
At a meeting held on the picket line on Friday 30th October, Optare workers voted to escalate their ongoing strike action in their long-running pay dispute from two days a week, to four days a week starting from Monday 16th November. Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Party Two weeks into the strike, many of the deliveries…
“We’ve started this, and there’s no going back” were the remarks of one speaker at the #endsars protest on October 24th in Millennium Square, Leeds. Around 50-60 joined the protest organised by the Nigerian Student Society at Leeds University. As well as slogans against police violence and demands to dismantle the SARS and SWAT police…
Unite members at bus manufacturer Optare, in Sherburn-in-Elmet, on the outskirts of Leeds, took the first strike in a series of discontinous 48 hour strikes starting on 15th October, alongsideside a continuous overtime ban. Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Party During pay negotiations in 2019, workers had been given a promise of a decent pay rise,…
“Claps don’t pay our bills” and “Nurses are for life, not just for pandemics” were amongst some of the slogans on homemade placards at the 250 strong demonstration of NHS & care workers fighting for a pay rise. This turnout would have been even bigger if it weren’t for the local lockdowns imposed on some…
The Covid-19 crisis has pushed councils up and down the country into a new financial crisis. The Centre for Progressive Policy thinktank expects eight out of ten tier-one local authorities to face the threat of bankruptcy. Labour-led Leeds City Council is the biggest of the councils to publicly raise this possibility. Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist…
Supporters of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) in Leeds held a protest outside Debenhams in Leeds, alongside others organised in London, Plymouth and Southampton against the companies savage cuts to jobs and stores, as part of a day of action called by members of the retail workers union, Usdaw, in the NSSN. Iain Dalton,…
Half a dozen cars and one cyclist took part in a car cavalcade co-sponsored by Leeds TUC this Thursday to highlight the reckless plans by the government for wider re-opening of schools. Leeds Socialist Party members joined the car cavalcade with our own posters and those of Leeds TUC which states ‘put workplace safety under…
Leeds Socialist Party members attended the public meeting of the Leeds Trades Union Council (Leeds TUC) via Zoom on Wednesday 29th April. Over 40 trade union reps and activists from across the region came together under the banner of “Testing, PPE – Put our Safety First – Organise in your Workplace”. Michael Docherty, PCS delegate…
Overworked, underpaid, struggling to afford the basics – this is true of the situation facing many ‘key workers’ that the Covid-19 lockdown has so clearly demonstrated society is dependent on. This was also the situation facing many workers 130 years ago when the first May Day marches took place to celebrate International Workers’ Day. Iain…
