Workers Memorial Day

Today is Workers Memorial Day.

It is a day to remember all those who have been killed or injured at, or because of, work.



Flowers were laid at the Leicester memorial tree in Town Hall Square.

Health & Safety is not expensive red tape. It saves lives and prevents illness & disability.

The current government are trying to weaken the legislation.

It is another fight that ordinary working people cannot afford to lose.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Bishop St,Leicester,United Kingdom

Vote carefully in the NEC elections

If you wish to follow the branch recommendation in the elections (which is entirely your own decision), follow the list circulated on e-mail by Chris. One election address in the official booklet is disingenuous and appears to be there to deliberately mislead. If you are unsure, contact a branch officer.

Contact Centre Dispute

JCP Contact Centres are on strike today for better conditions.

See the PCS web site for details, here



I was on the picket line at Derby CC. There was only a tiny minority of people going in & that included management, cleaners & canteen staff.

Please follow the PCS advice to support the dispute.

Remember, if we don't fight this in contact centres then there is a danger that the more oppressive regime could spread to the rest of DWP.

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A Cut-Back by Carol Ann Duffy

Many thanks to Peter Flack of the NUT for circulating this. Carol Ann Duffy is a Poet Laureate who doesn’t crawl up the backside of the establishment. I’m probably breaking all forms of copyright laws by reproducing this, but let me know who I should credit for educational purposes and I’ll gladly do it.



It’s no go the LitFest, it’s no go up in Lancaster,
though they’ve built an auditorium (still quite wet, the plaster)
a bar, a bookshop, office space … well, they won’t need wheelchair
access.
All we want is a million quid and here’s to the Olympics.

London’s Enitharmon Press was founded in 1967,
but David Gascoyne and Kathleen Raine are writing now in heaven,
with UA Fanthorpe, John Heath-Stubbs; dead good dead poets all.
The only bloody writing now’s the writing on the wall.

It’s no go the national art, it’s no go cake with icing.
All we want are strategic cuts, it’s no go salami slicing.

It’s no go the Poetry Trust, it’s no go in East Suffolk;
Aldeburgh’s east of Stratford East. As Rooney says, oh f-fuck it –
because it’s no go First Collection Prize, it’s no go local writers.
We’ve been asked to pull the plug, the rug, by coalition shysters.

National Association of Writers in Education?
No way, NAWE, children and books, the train’s leaving the station.
It’s no go your poets in schools, it’s no go your cultures.
All we want is squeezed middles and stringent diets for vultures.

’s no go the pamphlet, the gig in Newcastle no go.
All we want is a context for the National Portfolio.

Three little presses went to market, Flambard, Arc and Salt;
had their throats cut ear to ear and now it’s hard to talk.
They remember Thatcher’s Britain. Clegg-Cameron’s is worse.
Deathbyathousandcuts.co.uk, the least of which is verse.

It’s no go the avant-garde, it’s no go the mainstream.
All we want is a Review Group, chaired, including recommendations.
Stephen Spender thought continually of those who were truly great;
set up the Poetry Book Society with TS Eliot, genius mate.

But it’s no go two thousand strong in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Phone a cab for the Nobel laureates as they take their curtain call.

It’s no go, dear PBS. It’s no go, sweet poets.
Sat on your arses for fifty years and never turned a profit.
All we want are bureaucrats, the nods as good as winkers.
And if you’re strapped for cash, go fish, then try the pigging
bankers.