7th - 8th of April for Take Back Control

Hi Peter, Ken Loach, Diane Abbott, Dawn Foster and more are coming to Croydon on the 7th - 8th of April for Take Back Control, the first in a series of events bringing together leave and remain voters to make sense of Brexit, take back control from the establishment and bring power back to our communities. Get your ticket here, now The day will be a mixture of talks, workshops, exhibitions, food and parties, with other dates in Tower Hamlets, Plymouth, Bradford, Hastings, Barnsley, Norfolk, Dagenham & York. Another Europe is Possible will be hosting a session listening to your Brexit demands, and working out how we can build towards a people’s deal. Other highlights include: A screening of  I, Daniel Blake followed by a Q+A with Ken Loach on Friday 7th April. Diane Abbott in conversation with mercury prize nominee Soweto Kinch and journalist Maya Goodfellow on the role of identity and immigration in the Brexit debate. Guardian Journalist Dawn Foster along with local housing activists exploring how we can beat the housing crisis in London. Award winning playwright James Fritz leading an interactive read through of his new play Comment is Free, hailed by critics as “a fiercely current, socially relevant and dramatic depiction of free speech and mob mentality”. Founder of Bursary or Bust Danielle Tiplady, head of Croydon council Tony Newman and Independent journalist Youssef El Gingihy discussing the crisis in the NHS, social care and what we can do about it. Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now, will be hosting a session explaining how the government’s approach to post-brexit trade deals will effect you. A social space with art exhibitions, ping pong, food, live performances and film throughout the day. There’ll also be a #rumbleinthecronx after party featuring Soweto Kinch, live hip hop and poetry from Shay D and Juliette Burton performing "Decision Time", her show on living with mental health and which recently sold out in Leicester Square. [GET TICKETS + MORE INFO] [https://www.tickettailor.com/checkout/view-event/id/86854/chk/7241] See you in Croydon on Saturday, Another Europe is Possible

London Metropolitan University UCU: preparations for the implementation of academic boycott

London Metropolitan University UCU: preparations for the implementation of academic boycott

Branches will be aware of a number of live issues at London Metropolitan and the many challenges facing the hard pressed UCU branch officers as they try to deal with a number of simultaneous disputes.

Last autumn, the union’s higher education committee (HEC) approved the move to ‘censure’ the university as the first stage in the agreed process that can result in moving to full academic boycott.

The HEC also set up an executive team that met with the branch officers and developed an agreed strategy centred on giving management the opportunity to negotiate a resolution to the disputes or face the implementation of a full academic boycott. UCU’s censure and academic boycott process can be found here. 

At its most recent meeting, the HEC made an assessment of the progress of negotiations and agreed to give management a final opportunity to resolve the disputes through time-bound negotiations.

At the time of writing the negotiations are ongoing. However, branches and members are now advised to make preparations for a full academic boycott of London Metropolitan University.

This will include boycotting:

·  applying for any advertised jobs

·  speaking at or organising academic or other conferences

·  giving lectures

·  accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers

·  writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced by the institution in question

·  accepting new contracts as external examiners for taught courses

·  collaborating on new research projects.

Please watch this space for more updates in relation to this issue.

Best wishes

Paul Bridge
UCU head of higher education

Universal Credit: Claimants ‘stealing food’ to eat due to benefit delays

Universal Credit: Claimants ‘stealing food’ to eat due to benefit delays

Alan Wheatley

Notes

http://camdennewjournal.com/article/universal-credit-claimants-stealing-food-to-eat-due-to-benefit-delays

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/11/16/jobcentre-plus-poor-service-continues/

http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/?s=dwp+coroners

At Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's weekly business meeting on Thursday 23 March, though we warmed to the page 2 prominence given to your news story 'Universal Credit: Claimants "stealing food" to eat due to benefit delays: Finance chief warns people are being forced into new debt',(1) we were very concerned at what to us seems a fundamental error in one sentence of your report.

That error concerns the length of wait for Universal Credit payments to be processed. You report, 'In some cases, people are waiting up to six weeks before claims are processed.' Waits as long as six weeks for benefit claims to be processed and "unacceptable" telephone helpline service standards are nothing new and pre-date Universal Credit and even the 2010 General Election. In November 2006 Community Care magazine reported: "MPs slammed Jobcentre Plus for leaving 21 million calls unanswered. Despite government claims of improvements, stories of poor service continue to mount."(2)

Where our 'experts by experience' would disagree with your report is that we believe your report should state, 'People wait a minimum of six weeks for claims to be processed.' Those delays are exacerbated by the income fluctuations caused by processing of Universal Credit claims in zero hours economies; and the DWP's deepening reliance on 'pay-as-you-go' call-centre service delivery that  penalises economically vulnerable people for their vulnerability.

Now, as you report, 'Telephone calls [to the Universal Credit helpline] can cost up to 55p a minute from pay-as-you-go mobile phones, which are commonly used by people with lower incomes. Wait times to speak with an adviser can be very long – one claimant in Camden has reported that their phone bill for a month was over £140, used almost entirely on calls to the DWP.”' That is an all-too-common experience, leading in many cases to rent arrears and subsequent evictions.

This sickening system leads more and more people to sickness and suicide, while the DWP refuses to take lessons from coroners courts and insists instead that disability benefit claimants be reassessed every six months as standard.(3) Against that backdrop, Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group will be highlighting local benefits-related suicides on Monday 3 April as follows:

12 Noon: Assemble outside Kilburn Jobcentre, Cambridge Avenue, NW6 5AH for rally with local Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, PCS (jobcentre workers union) National Executive Officer Zita Holbourne and Brent Trades Council Executive Committee.

12:45: Black Flag march to Paddington Cemetry via Kilburn High Road.

13:30: Address at Leon Burmont graveside by Dawn Butler MP and RMT Political Officer Cat Cray.

14:00: Prince of Wales PH, Willesden Lane NW6 for Tea & Sandwiches

National Day of action against benefit sanctions.

Philip Fletcher

Hi Folks,

In case you didn't know, Thursday 30th of march is the National Day of action against benefit sanctions.

Stop benefit sanctions

Stop benefit sanctions These sanctions are cruel and handed out for ridiculous reasons

This is what Barnet Unite are planning.  It would be good if the Green Party could show a strong presence.

this is what is happening in Barnet:

Barnet Unite - No Sanctions, No Targets, No Closures !! https://www.facebook.com/events/702892836556590/ 
10.00 am to 11.00 am - Finchley Job Centre, 40 Ballads Lane, N3 2BL. https://www.facebook.com/events/702892836556590/ 
12 noon to 1.00 pm - Edgware Job Centre, 29 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7DX. 
Contact Branch Secretary Janette Evans - Janette876@hotmail.co.uk - See more at: http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/communitymembership/day-of-action-against-sanctions/#sthash.2QK3vtqo.dpuf

If you can't make it, to any of the Barnet events, then in Central London there is:

1.00 pm - Outside Westminster Tube: Banner Drop, Balloon Release 
1.45 pm - March to DWP at Caxton House 
2.00 to 3.00 pm - Demo at DWP Caxton House - See more at: http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/communitymembership/day-of-action-against-sanctions/#sthash.2QK3vtqo.dpuf

Afterwards there will be a lobbying session of MPs in the Commons.

Please pass around.

Phil Fletcher

(Barnet Green Party)

BREXIT & EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS

Liberating Arts conference and arts festival

C

Comrade

The inaugural Liberating Arts conference and arts festival will take place on the 3rd -5th November 2017, at the University of Exeter.

The 3-day event aims to connect the trade union movement with public educators, cultural workers and creative activists and explore the role of the arts and culture in the ongoing struggle for equality and social justice.

We invite interested trade unionists, cultural workers, activists and educators, to propose workshops, performances, media screenings, exhibitions, discussions, lectures and networking events that they would like to host at the event.

If you are a trade unionist, cultural worker or creative activist and would like to propose a session for Liberating Arts 2017 then please email the event Producer, Chris Jury, on chris.jury@btinternet.com

If you wish to present an academic paper or other research-based event please email Dr Rebecca Hillman r.a.hillman@exeter.ac.uk

Please share far and wide across your networks!

http://www.gftu-liberatingarts.org.uk

In Solidarity

Chris Jury
Producer, Liberating Arts 2017

Inspiration and solidarity: Durham Lions pay tribute to the Grunwick Lions

Inspiration and solidarity: Durham Lions pay tribute to the Grunwick Lions

Pictures courtesy of Grunwick 40

Amazing how the Grunwick dispute that took place 40 years ago is inspiring struggles today. All credit to the local activists here in Brent who got together to organise an exhibition, a mural and other events to commemorate the Grunwick workers' strike with the intention of making it relevant to current struggles around working conditions, women workers, migration and race - not just dry history.

Their success in doing so was summed up when the exhibition was visited by the Durham Teaching Assistants who are mounting a terrific campaign of their own LINK. They have spoken of how their struggle has been inspired by Jayaben Desai and her fellow workers and they deserve Aditya Chakrobortty's LINK description of them as the 'Durham Lions'. The photographs speaks for themselves - pride and solidarity.

The exhibition finishes on Sunday March 26th (closes at 5pm) so if you haven't seen it get down to Willesden Library as soon as possible.

Link to other Wembley Matters coverage of Grunwick HERE