[Cross-post from The Yorker]
It’s one of those jokes that has a distinct ring of truth to it, but the phrase ‘dear leader’ is one used with not all that much tongue in cheek about Green Party leader and MP Caroline Lucas. It’s a veneration that will flavour the next couple of months we pick our next figurehead after Lucas announced that after four years in the role, she’ll be stepping down in September.
Being the kind of party that we are, it is only in 2007 that we actually created the role of leader – and for some on the left of the party it is still a position of contention. But since the office was created membership has soared (many of the new recruits are students), the party has its first council, and the Greens have gone from fourth to third party in London – ahead of the Lib Dems. No small feats for a few years.
The next steps, however, are crucial, and will determine which direction the party takes. The most important shift that can be made, and I think must, is a move towards the North. The recent local elections boosted Green representation in the West Midlands and Yorkshire, with a record number of candidates fielded in the North West and Manchester. Last week also saw a defection from the Lib Dems in Solihull, near Birmingham, the Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem group who realised that to oppose austerity, it’s wise to be part of a party consistently doing that.
But at the moment, at least off campus, recycling pops into most people’s heads when they think ‘Green’. That’s a perception that needs to change – and the places to make that happen are the areas hardest hit by the cuts – Yorkshire, Newcastle, Birmingham, Lancashire.
I’m not suggesting any dramatic shift. But with Caroline Lucas standing down to make way for fresh blood, it would be a symbol of changing times if the Greens elected a leader who comes from somewhere facing the brunt of the coalition’s slash-and-burn policies. A leader perhaps not from, dare I say it, a professional background.
There is a huge space in the political sphere of this country for someone who can offer leadership to the rising discontent felt by library closures, dying Sure Start centres, the near-abolition of EMA and the tripling of fees. All of which, when raised by the Labour Party, are met with the battle cry of not ‘stop!’ but ‘please, could you possibly slow down a bit?’
Caroline Lucas was and is that figure – but with fresh leadership elections next month, ‘seize the day’ should be the phrase of the moment. All three main party leaders come from wealthy elite backgrounds – Clegg, son of the chairman of United Trust Bank, Miliband, offspring of the left intelligentsia, and Cameron…well. There’s only so many times you can read the word ‘Eton’ before you realise that it has given us 19 Prime Ministers and yet educated just 0.00035% of our population. It’s time to buck the trend.
One problem – it’s incredibly difficult to do so unless you can actually make a living. By that I mean the only way someone from an ordinary background can be expected to take on a full time role is if they’re actually paid for it. And that’s not the case at the moment. A motion is expected to be put forward to the next conference in Bristol that the role of leader is paid, so that activists who don’t have paid elected roles are able to take the helm.
With around 60% of MPs coming from professional or business backgrounds, it’s up to a different party to the main three to turn the tide. Contrary to the ‘middle-class’ myths surrounding the Greens, there are plenty of people out there who fit the bill, too. Just don’t ask me for any predictions.
This article is featured here at Socialist Unity – comments welcome
It’s fair to say the left in Britain is in a pretty sorry state. The sheer number of miniscule, bickering left-wing groups indicates the scale of the problem. The left’s crisis is reflected throughout Europe – France and Germany’s ‘New Anti-capitalist’ Parties have come to little, nominally social democratic governments have been ejected from office in Portugal, Spain and elsewhere, and in Britain, the Labour party – again social democratic by name – refuses to reject the cuts consensus, while Trotskyite sects argue at the side-lines.
Until Galloway’s election in Bradford, there was just one electable social/ist democratic party – the Greens. In Brighton, the Green council have rejected privatisation and spent months consulting unions and community groups on the first Green budget, which though not uncontroversial, is impressive in its participatory nature and the fact that it had strong union support against attacks from Labour and the Conservatives which saw over £3m worth more of cuts forced onto it through rejecting a council tax increase. The introduction of a Living Wage and pay ratios show what left-led local councils can do even when faced with massive central government funding cuts.
And yet in May – if Labour lose a number of seats to Respect – Brighton could be potentially joined by as a left-led council by a Labour/Respect coalition in Bradford. Unlikely, of course – yet then again so was the election of a Respect MP until just a couple of weeks ago. Even if Labour still firmly hold the council, which they no doubt will, they may well have a number of vociferous socialist councillors to contend with in the council chamber, and could be pressured to implement progressive policies – like the Living Wage, reinstating EMA on a council-wide basis (as, somewhat surprisingly, Cornwall Council appear to be doing) and building resistance to the cuts. It’s not impossible off the back of a huge electoral victory that come May, a sixth of Bradford council could be Respect seats. Sweeping gains may not be a pipe dream.
Yet there is a problem. 127 candidates are fighting for 30 seats – and among them, competing left candidates. Socialist Labour are standing against Green councillor Martin Love who leads the Green Group and has over the past few years pushed for renewable energy for new housing and won for Bradford millions of pounds in green investment. Respect are standing against Green candidates in Heaton, Manningham and elsewhere. I’m a biased observer as a Green activist – but anti-cuts activists opposing elected anti-cuts activists seems like a strange tactic and a clear example of the Pythonesque Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea politics that has not helped the left one bit – except to spruce up splinter group paper columns.
To consider the solution we first have to accept a few facts. A Labour council is in general better than a Tory one. A Green council would be (and is) more progressive still – and perhaps likewise for Respect. But where left candidates stand a good chance of being elected, I think we must accept that party allegiance should be put aside.
In short, we need an electoral alliance. We cannot have absurd situations like the Socialist Party standing against John McDonnell MP back in 2001, or Socialist Labour standing against Caroline Lucas in 2010. And that’s without even mentioning the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition.
The prospects of a left alliance look bright post-‘Bradford Spring’. Such an alliance might consist of candidates standing aside at the next election to allow whoever out of Respect and the Green Party previously got a higher percentage of the vote to stand – and if possible, cross-party activism and public support. It might be uncomfortable, but under First Past the Post, it may be time to realise that it’s also necessary. In sum, we have to accept what Dawud Islam– the Green candidate for Bradford West and now Respect council candidate – has said: ‘Caroline Lucas MP and George Galloway MP [should] agree some sort of electoral pact between the parties in the future, as I certainly view the Green Party as a progressive party of the left.’ Though in Parliamentary terms the parties are now equal, it must be remembered that before Galloway’s election Respect had less than 700 members nationally.
There is clearly a high degree of overlap with both parties – both promote ‘investment not cuts’, nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from Afghanistan and NATO, strong public services, rail renationalisation and an end to anti-union laws. The difficulty, though not a significant one, is environmental policy – but it’s hard to see Respect rejecting environmentalist concerns.
After the May elections, Respect and the Greens – and TUSC, for that matter – should seriously consider an electoral alliance of some kind. It has been done with success before, though not apparently in England. In France, the Left Front are making huge headway in the polls, and present a situation that should be aspired to here, where they are forcing Hollande’s moderate Socialists to support measures like a 75% top tax rate. More relevantly, the Socialists have offered a number of seats where they will not stand against the Greens, in return for broad cross-Parliamentary support.
Predictions, as Bradford showed us, generally fail. So I only make the suggestion – to pragmatically accept party overlap, and support electoral alliance as the best chance for overall success. Because truly, none but the most dogmatic can deny they were cheered by Respect’s success in Bradford as setting an alternative to the austerity agenda. So it’s time to adopt that painful but often successful tactic which has for too many decades been ignored – alliance.
[This article is from a press release published here at the Yorker]
The University of York Living Wage Campaign continues to grow as Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and co-author of ‘The Spirit Level’ Richard Wilkinson became the latest to sign a pledge of support for the cause.
The figures’ backing comes as a petition for the Living Wage at the university has acquired over 800 signatures in the last few weeks.
The Living Wage campaign on campus was formed in response to FoI requests which found that over 100 members of staff, and up to 640 including casual workers, currently receive less than the Living Wage.
Campaigners are soon to meet with senior management to discuss the implementation of the £7.20 pay rate deemed by the Centre for Research in Social Policy to be the necessary amount outside of London needed in order to enjoy a comfortable standard of living.
Fourteen London universities have already implemented the higher rate of pay, and the campaigners feel that York should be the next to implement the scheme to tackle what many have called “poverty-pay”.
Lisa Camps, chair of the University of York Green Party, said: “The fact that we have distinguished members of parliament offering their support just goes to show the national importance of the Living Wage campaign and compels senior management to listen. At a time of economic hardship, paying the Living Wage is the right thing to do.”
Camps added: “In the UK, only the pay of those at the very top has risen in real terms for the last three decades, hopefully this will be a step forward in redressing that balance.”
Campaigners argue that awarding the Living Wage to staff at the university will help to decrease the growing pay gap that currently stands at 16:1, with Vice-Chancellor Brian Cantor earning around £260,000 – which equates to £5000 for every week of the year.
Commenting on the campus campaign at the launch event on March 5, Richard Wilkinson, an expert and author on inequality, said: “I’m quite sure you will win this.”
Attendance at Living Wage events held at the University of York has been growing as the campaign builds and has attracted the attention of Heslington Cllr David Levene and YUSU President-elect Kallum Taylor, who were among the attendees of the launch event on the 5th March.
Labour Club Chair Rhiân Davies commented: “The reception we’ve had from students has been overwhelmingly positive, people really appreciate that everyone deserves a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.”
The Living Wage campaign is a cross-party campaign, with Labour, UoY Greens and the Liberal Democrats all involved, and the committee meets at 14:15 every Thursday in V/122.
It’s through. After suffering some humiliating defeats, the government’s Welfare Reform Bill stumbled through Parliament on Wednesday. The controversial bill, in the words of Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith, ‘reforms every part of our welfare system’. All that’s now left is Royal Assent.
The motive for the changes seems clear enough – handling ‘the worst deficit since the war’, according to a DWP report. But would it be so facetious to say we are still at war, or that following the very war the report refers to, Britain established a comprehensive, publically run and funded National Health Service, created the welfare state and set about reconstructing the country after the disaster that was WWII. How times have changed.
But the real reasons behind the welfare reforms are that people on benefits are very easy targets. If there is one thing that shores up a government’s support it’s that terrible phrase ‘welfare reform’. Reform used to mean progressive things like extending the right to vote (e.g. The Great Reform Act) – it’s hard to see what rights the Welfare Bill enshrines.
You’ll be familiar with some of the changes. Limiting benefits for families to £26k a year, replace Disability Living Allowance with a Personal Independence Payment, replacing Jobseekers’ Allowance and other benefits with a single ominous-sounding ‘Universal Credit’, etc. etc. Fairly technical stuff.
But behind these changes we see unprecedented cuts to the social safety net – £11bn a year. We already have one of the most stripped-back welfare states in Europe, at a time when there are less than half a million jobs to over two and a half million people unemployed. In fact, when this government came in, unemployment was at 7.8%. It’s now at 8.4%. It might not sound like a huge jump, but it’s the difference of several hundred thousand people stepping onto an increasingly punishing dole-queue. Talk about kicking you when you’re down.
It makes depressing reading for us students. We’re going into the most volatile jobs market this country has seen for decades. Rents are too high, wages too low, inflation is rising and you pretty much have to know everyone in your desired area to get decent work. That’s why this stuff matters. With fewer of us able to afford a house after university, it’s our generation that will most rely on Housing Benefit once we’ve graduated, or Tax Credits to top up measly incomes from working on tills and petrol stations.
Yet you do have to hand it to the government. The reframing of the debate from one of simple economic collapse to one where the individual is responsible for the jobs market has been amazingly successful. This bill is just the latest stage in that reframing.
Take just one of Ian Duncan Smith’s statements to the BBC: ‘the Universal Credit will mean that work will pay for the first time’. For a start, the problem lies not with the ‘generosity’ of benefits, but with the fact that wages in the UK have been rising below inflation for years. If the minimum wage was at a level where families did not have to live in working poverty, the problem of benefit fraud would be far smaller than it is, and the government would not have to subsidise supermarkets for not paying their staff enough to live on.
Labour’s take on the welfare bill has been no better. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne, said the bill ‘offers some good ideas’, but criticised the fact that there are too few jobs around for claimants to turn to. Yet it was New Labour that shipped over America’s ‘welfare-to-work’ policies that penalised the jobless and encouraged the same kind of workfare schemes that the Conservative-led government is currently being blasted for.
Across Europe governments are doing the same thing – slashing benefits and making it easier to sack people. All part of one painful ‘growth drive’. How exactly the economy is meant to grow when people are fearing for their jobs isn’t spoken of, but it is clear that these policies aren’t working. Since austerity began to kick in around the start of 2009, more than 4m people have become unemployed. It now stands at around 24 million people across Europe. That’s about five and a half times the population of Ireland.
Still, at least it’s not long until the Olympics.
[This is my latest article for the Yorker - the University of York's top online news/comment site]
It’s a big deal in America. Elected mayors run the shots in cities like New York and Chicago, and this year seems to be the year that Britain seeks to create its own Michael Bloombergs and Rahm Emanuels. Bolton and Liverpool – not quite NY and Chicago – are soon deciding whether to have elected mayors, and inspired by a London mayoral race in full swing, it’s looking like they’ll get them. Opinion polls consistently put support for elected mayors at 55-75% of the population. But what of elected police commissioners?
The two planks of the government’s ‘localism’ agenda seem are vastly different things. Elected mayors were introduced in 2000 and referendums followed in around 37 areas over the next decade – most without success. Yet referendums for elected police commissioners haven’t even been suggested. Instead they are being handed down from above as embodiments of the ‘Big Society’. John Prescott is standing nearby – Humberside – with the compensation he was given from the disgraced News of the World. Not so much big society as big money.
The police elections are expected to cost £75m, but the biggest danger is not so much the cost, rather it is the politics. Within a few years the police force could go from impartial to politicised. Think about it. What platforms will these politicians be standing on? Whatever will win votes – i.e. the most draconian policing seen since Peterloo. And on turnouts likely to be even lower than mayoral ones, the positions could be well within reach of whoever is better organised, however extreme, be it the BNP or the Pirate Party.
Elected mayors work because local government is fundamentally political, as it should be. People want a strong figure to look to, to vote out when incompetent and to stand up to central government when necessary. But electioneering doesn’t make for sound thinking for an institution with the coercive potential of the police.
As the former head of the Gloucestershire force has said, the system ‘has been designed by politicians for politicians’. Party platforms will be at the centre of the debate, as we’ve seen with the flurry of politicians like Tony Lloyd MP and of course Prescott throwing their hats into the ring. Supporters will argue the new PCCs only control the police budgets. True, to an extent. But where will most of the pressure be for spending increases? Anti-terrorism and clamping down on anti-social behaviour. Both important areas – but what of domestic abuse and fraud prevention? It will be the less highlighted issues that will get ignored when votes are at stake.
When the government are handing down 20% real terms cuts to police budgets, it’s hard to see elected police commissioners as anything other than public punch-bags. Elected mayors are an important means of democratising what needs democratising. Elected police commissioners are a means of democratising what should definitely not be political. Let us keep the two separate.
[This article is taken from my latest piece for Nouse, the University of York student newspaper]
It’s a big deal in America. Elected mayors run the shots in cities like New York and Chicago, and this year seems to be the year that Britain seeks to create its own Michael Bloombergs and Rahm Emanuels. Bolton and Liverpool – not quite NY and Chicago – are soon deciding whether to have elected mayors, and inspired by a London mayoral race in full swing, it’s looking like they’ll get them. Opinion polls consistently put support for elected mayors at 55-75% of the population. But what of elected police commissioners?
The two planks of the government’s ‘localism’ agenda seem are vastly different things. Elected mayors were introduced in 2000 and referendums followed in around 37 areas over the next decade – most without success. Yet referendums for elected police commissioners haven’t even been suggested. Instead they are being handed down from above as embodiments of the ‘Big Society’. John Prescott is standing nearby – Humberside – with the compensation he was given from the disgraced News of the World. Not so much big society as big money.
The police elections are expected to cost £75m, but the biggest danger is not so much the cost, rather it is the politics. Within a few years the police force could go from impartial to politicised. Think about it. What platforms will these politicians be standing on? Whatever will win votes – i.e. the most draconian policing seen since Peterloo. And on turnouts likely to be even lower than mayoral ones, the positions could be well within reach of whoever is better organised, however extreme, be it the BNP or the Pirate Party.
Elected mayors work because local government is fundamentally political, as it should be. People want a strong figure to look to, to vote out when incompetent and to stand up to central government when necessary. But electioneering doesn’t make for sound thinking for an institution with the coercive potential of the police.
As the former head of the Gloucestershire force has said, the system ‘has been designed by politicians for politicians’. Party platforms will be at the centre of the debate, as we’ve seen with the flurry of politicians like Tony Lloyd MP and of course Prescott throwing their hats into the ring.
Supporters will argue the new PCCs only control the police budgets. True, to an extent. But where will most of the pressure be for spending increases? Anti-terrorism and clamping down on anti-social behaviour. Both important areas – but what of domestic abuse and fraud prevention? It will be the less highlighted issues that will get ignored when votes are at stake.
When the government are handing down 20% real terms cuts to police budgets, it’s hard to see elected police commissioners as anything other than public punch-bags. Elected mayors are an important means of democratising what needs democratising. Elected police commissioners are a means of democratising what should definitely not be political. Let us keep the two separate.
[This article is my latest piece for Nouse (University of York student newspaper)]
I’ve posted the press release below just to spread the good news that one of the University of York’s largest colleges has given its overwhelming support to the Living Wage campaign – standing up for fair pay for the university’s low paid workers.
The University of York Green Party is also behind the campaign and stands for a maximum 10:1 pay ratio at the University (a policy the Green Party advocates nationally).
Vanbrugh gives resounding backing to campus Living Wage campaign
Vanbrugh College voted overwhelmingly on Thursday (14th Feb) to back the Living Wage campaign, a growing demand on campus for all staff to be paid a minimum of £7.20 per hour to support their families. The open meeting, which saw 80 students come together to vote on vital issues, gave its near unanimous backing to the call. It is a response to revelations that VC Brian Cantor is paid 16 times the lowest paid workers employed by the University of York.
Following both the Labour club and the UoY Green Party’s backing of the cause, Vanbrugh College is the first JCRC to get behind the Living Wage, which has already been implemented in various universities such as Queen Mary’s in London.
This follows the latest Freedom of Information request by the Labour club which shows over 600 workers at the university are paid less than the minimum wage. The Living Wage is the amount needed outside of London for a couple of support two children without hardship.
Environment and Campaigns representative Josiah Mortimer, who proposed the motion, said:
“I’m extremely happy that Vanbrugh gave such a resounding vote in support of the Living Wage, which send a strong message to management that pay cannot continue to rise at the top while ordinary workers at the university struggle to pay their bills.
“The fact that Vanbrugh is the first college committee to back the campaign has set the ball rolling and I hope that other JCRCs follow suit. YUSU’s campaign committee is very much behind the project and the call for fair pay for all in these tough times will only grow louder. It is clear that students are very much behind the uni’s workers.”
The vote passed by 78 votes with 1 abstention and 1 against.
More information about the Living Wage can be found here: http://www.livingwage.org.uk/
[This article was written for the December edition of the Zahir, the University of York's culture magazine]
Hypothetical situation: you’re the leader of a country with 700,000 empty homes and an increasing number of people sleeping on the streets. You’re cutting housing benefit, threatening thousands with eviction. Do you make it a) easier for people to occupy these empty homes, or b) make it illegal and slap a one year prison sentence and a £5,000 fine on anyone caught doing it?
Choices, choices, choices. Needless to say, you’re not the leader. David Cameron is. And he’s going for option B.
About 40,000 people currently ‘squat’ in unoccupied homes around the UK. At the moment, it’s not technically illegal for them to do so, as it would be more expensive for them to live on the streets when dealing when the long-term health costs of homelessness are taken into account (most long-term rough sleepers die in the 40s). Sleeping in an empty building is an obvious alternative to an alley for an evicted family, especially with the construction of social housing now at its lowest for decades.
The changes would be a little more understandable had the government’s consultation shown that most people support the move. But out of over 2,000 responses, 95% opposed the criminalisation of squatting. 120 academics and lawyers also signed a letter in The Guardian in September questioning Ken Clarke’s proposals. This is clearly then, a controversial move.
Some manifestations of that anger could be seen on the 31st of October when about 500 squatters marched to Parliament for a planned ‘sleep-in’, demanding the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill which contains the provisions be dropped. The protest was broken up as by police (it was ‘unauthorised’) and seven people were arrested. A day later, the bill passed overwhelmingly in the Commons.
Scotland, well ahead of us here, has already made squatting a criminal offence. However, there are existing ways of getting rid of squatters in England and Wales, with evictions done through the civil courts. Many squatters are charged with Criminal Damage, an offence which is easy to prove and regularly sees people thrown out. The means are already there, then. But the Conservatives, who, on an unrelated note, have received £3.3m from property developers over the past three years, are set on taking a tough stance on the issue.
Who exactly are these squatters? 37% of them suffer from mental health problems. 78% had attempted to get help from councils, and failed. A fifth have alcohol problems. This is clearly a deep social problem. A parliamentary motion against the bill puts it right – the government should ‘not penalise vulnerable homeless people [but] focus on tackling the root cause of the problem’, namely that the housing market is failing Britain. The motion, by the way, garnered a mere 40 signatures.
Outside of Parliament though, the government’s decision has sparked outrage from a broad range of charities and campaigning groups – Crisis, the Advisory Service for Squatters, and surprisingly, the NUS. Why the NUS have spoken out doesn’t seem immediately apparent – until you realise that the legislation being introduce to criminalise squatting could also criminalise university occupations. Is this the end of the campus occupation? And if it isn’t, could it be the start of an era of lawsuits by universities against their own students? It’s a dangerous time to be radical.
Michael Chessum, on the NUS executive committee, said the NUS would make it ‘politically impossible’ for the coalition to enforce the moves. What that could involve is as yet unclear, but two universities – Birmingham and St Andrews – have just gone into occupation. As the slogan goes from last year’s demonstrations, this might be ‘just the beginning’, but with swinging cuts to the education budget, it seems unlikely that squatting reforms are going to be the main topic in student protests over the next few months. Michael Chessum could be disappointed.
The real opposition has to come from the charities concerned and individuals willing to take a stand. Ministers listened when the National Trust spoke out against planning reforms. The plans for woodland privatisation were dropped when campaign group 38 degrees spoke out. The vulnerable people who’ll be evicted because of governmental short-sightedness need someone to speak out for them, too.
“The government are saying…you don’t know best – we do”. Such was the denouement of Theresa May’s maiden speech in 1997, condemning the new Blair government on its education reforms. Sadly Blair’s instincts seem to have rubbed off on her. At this week’s Conservative Party conference, May endorsed Cameron’s plans to take back power from ‘unaccountable judges’ under the Human Rights Act and ‘bring them back’. To politicians? “You don’t know best”: May’s words to judges today.
It’s hard to think of such a contradiction for the Tories as the Human Rights Act, which took powers back from Europe (by bringing the European Convention on Human Rights into British law – and our courts). Strangely, you won’t see Eurosceptics mourning the apparent death of the HRA on Newsnight, despite Brits no longer having to go to Strasbourg to sort their problems out.
Cameron had a lot to say about liberty and rights upon becoming Tory leader – ‘compassionate Conservatism’ (borrowed from that arch-executioner George Bush) aimed to fix the ‘flog em all’ reputation of the Tories. Appointing the liberal Kenneth Clarke as chair of a new Tory ‘democracy group’, Cameron even stole some of the Lib Dems pink flair while they were still battling over who would lead their own party.
By the time the 2010 election arrived however, Cameron promised to replace the HRA with a Bill of Rights (which Clarke described as ‘zenophobic’). The dispute in the coalition over the HRA mirrors the manifesto divide – the Lib Dems pledged to ‘protect the Human Rights Act’. Then again, they also pledged to scrap tuition fees. Where this leaves the coalition now though is uncertain. The coalition agreement is ambiguous, seeking to establish a commission to ‘build on our obligations under the ECHR’.
May, who voted against New Labour’s rights-infringing counter-terrorism legislation, described herself to the Tory conference as one ‘in the minority who want [the HRA] to go’. Let’s hope the hypocrite remains in a minority. But other senior figures in the party also want the act scrapped. Will the Lib Dems fight for it, or perform another cowardly u-turn? After the tuition fee debacle however, it’s unlikely the party faithful would forgive another. Cameron’s future is stable. But Clegg’s future as leader could stand on this. The question ‘stay or may be about more than just the Human Rights Act a few weeks down the line.
The Guardian reported yesterday that Unite, Britain’s biggest trade union, has just launched a new cut price rate for students and the unemployed of 50p a week in an aim to bring some of those most badly affected by the cuts into the union movement.
Kudos to Len McClusky, the left-wing leader of Unite who has proved a match for the Tory government since coming in six months ago. I’ve been a Unite member for just a few weeks, and though like seemingly every other group at the minute there’s been a few membership problems (the Green Party for a start), the new rate looks like a good step towards sorting it out.
I have my criticisms of course. Unite’s online membership at the moment is shambolic – it’s a nightmare to join online and when you have there is often little confirmation to say you’ve successfully joined. If that isn’t off-putting to students, I don’t know what it. Moreover, the Unite student site hasn’t been updated for months, and the members section of the unions main site is currently down. Without sorting this out, the problems of a non-unionised student workforce will remain.
Getting students and the unemployed on board has to be one of the most important hurdles in fighting the cuts as well as fighting for workers rights in an increasingly casualised, “hire-or-fire” labour market.
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