The Torch of Workers' Solidarity

Strikers from public service unions and their supporters will be meeting at The Torch pub tomorrow morning at 9.30am for a rally before travelling to central London  The Torch is in Wembley Park opposite the Ark Academy, on the corner of Bridge Road and Forty Lane.

The Green Party Trades Union Group has issued the following statement:

GPTU calls on all its members and all Green Party members to suppot the strikers of UCU, ATL,NUT and PCS in the pensions strike tomorrow. We have posted a message from Sally Hunt of UCU on the GPTU blog which explains that, contrary to media myth, public sector pensions are hardly generous. These pensions are in any case a slight compensation for the low salaries of the public sector where many workers do their work out of a sense of public service. Why should these workers pay with their pensions for a crisis of international finance? 

More Library Legal Fund Events Coming Up

A message from Brent SOS Libraries who have £15,000 left to raise for their legal action against Brent Council.

• Open Garden Party on Sunday, 3 July 3-6pm  at 121 Anson Road NW2  £5 (Nearest station: Willesden Green / Cricklewood) further details from Graham Durham grahamdurham@hotmail.com or at http://www.savekensalriselibrary.org/category/events/

• a second Preston Pub Quiz on Monday, 4 July , 7.30 for 8pm start. £5/3.

• Meeting with the writer Philip Pullman on 20 July, 7pm at Queens Park Community School. £10. More details later. 

Poem: For the People

Unison commissioned Tony Walsh, poet in residence at the Glastonbury Festival, to write a poem for the public services. His poem FOR THE PEOPLE can be found HERE

Strike for quality journalism

Local newspapers are under pressure because of a decline in advertising and readership as well as because of competition from the internet. However when publishers make cuts this often reinforces the decline with fewer journalists meaning less time for investigations and a tendency to do cut and paste jobs on press releases. Some newspapers end up padded out with stories from neighbouring areas rather than the their own borough.

I am convinced that a robust and active local press is absolutely necessary to hold the local council to account as well as providing a focus that cements local community solidarity.

Newsquest publishes the Harrow Times and Newsquest journalists in South London are to strike again this week in their continuing dispute over redundancies and in support of quality local journalism. Unlike some local newspapers the titles concerned are in profit.

The strike began on  Monday June 27 and is due to end at midnight on Thursday June 30.

NUJ negotiator Jenny Lennox said: “We’ve had a very successful two-day strike last week, and it is worth noting that a dozen journalists have joined the union since the dispute began. This reflects the deep anger which journalists employed by Newsquest at their bosses’ determination to avoid consulting with staff on the future of their papers.”

The NUJ strikers had previously adopted a unanimous vote of no confidence in their top management after a company decision to make an unspecified number of editorial staff redundant while the group’s titles continue to make substantial profits.

The strikers keep journalists and readers informed of developments through a special strike blog

The journalists deserve our support.

Lib Dem Councillor Joins the Greens

This is a statement from Hampshire County Councillor Alan Weeks who has decided to leave the Lib Dems and join the Greens:

When I was campaigning local voters made it clear to me that they were angry about the way they have been let down by the national Lib Dem party. What they were saying was right. I have been a Lib Dem (and Liberal before that) for about 25 years and it is not me that has changed. It is the values of the national Liberal Democrats that have changed. For example, on the tuition fees issue, it was untrustworthy for MPs to break personal pledges that they had made.

It was a tough decision for me to resign and join the Green Party after almost 25 years of service as a Lib Dem councillor. But my heart has to be in what I do and I could no longer support the direction taken by Lib Dem leaders.

Now I am looking forward and I am excited to be joining the Green Party. I realise that Green Party values of putting people and the environment before profit, provision and not privatisation of public services, promoting renewable energy and a high priority for animal welfare are in line with mine.

Parent urges others to rally behind teachers

This is a posting from a parent of  child at Kenmont Primary School in Hammersmith and Fulham but close to the Brent border.

Dear Parents

I am a parent and my son is in year 4. I feel very passionate about building support for our teachers.

Together, Governors, teachers and parents, we were able to defeat the plans of the doom merchants in the Tory council to convert our wonderful school into an Academy. Where they failed with us, they are attempting to do this to other schools.

The government took our taxes to bail out the bankers, and are forcing through austerity measures which will affect the most vulnerable in society and impoverish the rest of us for years to come, which is why they are attacking teacher’s pensions.

David Cameron said we are all in it together. Do you hear the cries of the bankers and their rich friends with their share of the burden? No, because the burden rest with us to keep them in the riches they so don’t deserve

• There are 13 millionaires in the Condemn Government’s cabinet whose wealth is safely tucked away in tax havens abroad and not a drop goes to the Inland Revenue.

• Barclays bank recently published figures showing it had paid 22 percent tax to the land Revenue. Closer examination showed that they included their employee’s income tax in their figures and in actual fact they paid only paid 1 percent of their profits in tax.

If the bankers and their rich friends won’t take the pain they caused, why should we?

Teachers have a right to a decent pension, after all their money goes into paying for it. It’s another way of trashing our teachers and the education our children deserve. Teachers are fighting back and a victory for them is a victory for all of us, especially the most vulnerable.

Kenmont teachers will be meeting with other teachers at Lyric Square which is on Kings Street in Hammersmith at 9am on Thursday morning. At 10am they will be going on a national demonstration starting at Lincolns Inn Fields in Holborn later that morning.

Since the kids won’t be at school for the day, show your support and join our teachers at Lyric Square.


LINK to other London actions on June 30th

Invisible menace threatens children's health

The North Circular at Neasden

I spent more than 10 years teaching at a primary school which was close to the North Circular in Brent. In contrast to other schools where I had taught there were high numbers of children on medication for asthma at the school. Classes often had 6-8 asthmatics compared with only one or two per class where I had taught before. Sports Day could be a nightmare. Although  local GP prescribing policies  may have contributed it appeared that the high level was down to the proximity of a very busy main road.

The impact of London pollution became clearer when we took children on residential trips. Children who had used an inhaler daily at school were able to do without them almost within hours of arriving at the Gordon Brown Outdoor Education Centre in Hampshire or the Youth Hostel in Epping Forest.As the coach reached the borders of London they began to request their inhalers.

New research by the Campaign for Clean Air has found that 1,148 schools in London are within 150 metres of roads carrying 10,000 or more vehicles per day and a total of 2,270 schools are within 400 metres of such roads.

This revelation comes at a time when new scientific research indicates that children exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution at school and home may be at increased risk of developing asthma. Scientists say living near roads travelled by 10,000 or more vehicles per day could be responsible for some 15-30 per cent of all new cases of asthma in children; and of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and CHD (coronary heart disease) in adults 65 years of age and older.

Jenny Jones, the Green Party London Mayoral candidate says:

* parents and teachers must be told when there are high pollution days
*  the Mayor of London has to act immediately to lower fares and reduce the total number of cars on our roads.
* create a very low emission zone which only allows the very cleanest vehicles to enter central London.
*  the Mayor must stick to the promise that all new buses will be hybrids from next year
* reinstate the plans for hybrid taxis which he dropped last year.

A map which shows the schools affected across London, and enables you to see Brent in details can be found  HERE 
or you can download a PDF listing the schools 150metres from a road carrying more than 10,000 vehicles per day HERE

Among the Brent schools listed are Copland High, Gower House, Jewish Free School, Oliver Goldsmith Primary, Our Lady of Grace (Dollis Hill) Our Lady of Lourdes (Stonebridge), Park Lane Primary, Preston Manor High, St Augustine's Primary (Kilburn), Stonebridge Primary,

Simon Birkett, director of Clean Air in London, said:

The government and Mayor Johnson must tackle an invisible public health crisis harming as many people now as we thought during the Great Smog in December 1952.

We need one or more additional inner low emission zones that ban the oldest diesel vehicles from our most polluted roads, and a massive campaign to build public understanding of the dangers of air pollution with advice on how people can protect themselves.

Fun at Eco-Cultural Festival on Sunday

Click on image to enlarge

The Brent festival season is  well under way now and I will be in Queensbury with a Brent School Without Walls stall and running parachute games for children. This Festival is a great showcase for local dancing groups.