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Dave Nellist to stand in the Birmingham Erdington by-election
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) today announced that Dave Nellist is to contest the forthcoming Birmingham Erdington parliamentary by-election on behalf of the left-wing alliance. During his time as a Midlands Labour MP from 1983-1992, Dave was a backbench parliamentary colleague of Jeremy Corbyn.
Dave, who was the MP for Coventry South East for nine years and later, for 14 years, a Coventry city councillor for the Socialist Party from 1998 to 2012, was well-known during his time in parliament for only taking an ordinary worker's wage, giving away over half of an MP's bloated salary - currently £82,000 pounds a year - to trade unionists and working class campaigners fighting to defend their livelihoods and communities. (See this BBC account from 2013 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-23289962)
Accepting the TUSC nomination for the Erdington contest, Dave said:
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Unite and the bakers’ union to speak at TUSC conference
As Keir Starmer's Labour welcomes a Tory MP to the parliamentary party - while confirming Jeremy Corbyn's exclusion from the PLP at its January national executive committee meeting - the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) conference on Sunday February 6th will hear speakers from Unite the union, currently Labour's biggest affiliate, and the recently disaffiliated BFAWU bakers' union.
The TUSC conference has been convened under the heading, 'Vote for a socialist recovery from the Covid crisis!'. It will be discussing the TUSC intervention in this year's May local elections, with the context being what local councils should be doing to protect working class communities from the establishment politicians' attempts to make us pay for the impacts of Covid.
Unite were invited to speak to explain the extremely significant decision of its recent policy conference to call on "Labour councils to set legal, balanced no cuts needs based budgets" rather than meekly accept the Tories' austerity agenda, and the union's Lead for Local Government, Onay Kasab, has been formally deputised to do so. He will be speaking alongside Ian Hodson, the president of the BFAWU, who will explain the union's historic decision last autumn to disaffiliate from the Labour Party after 119 years of membership.
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TUSC appeals for widest possible anti-austerity socialist unity for May elections
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has issued an appeal for the widest possible united anti-austerity socialist challenge at the local council elections scheduled for 5th May 2022.
Launching the appeal, the TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist, a Labour MP from 1983-1992, said: "As every day goes by, it becomes ever clearer that the Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer will not provide alternative anti-austerity policies to those the Johnson government is seeking to implement to make working class people pay for the effects of the Covid crisis, through cuts in public services, wage freezes, and rising prices and taxes".
"In the polls taking place next May, in which over 6,500 council seats are up for election, while there may be a handful of Labour candidates still defending the anti-austerity policies that Jeremy Corbyn supported, voters in the vast majority of cases will have no choice other than that between different varieties of austerity politicians - unless fighting trade unionists, socialists, and working class community campaigners get together to offer a united, anti-austerity alternative at the ballot box".
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TUSC to discuss local council policies and electoral strategy at February conference
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee has agreed the agenda and timetable for the TUSC 2022 local elections conference to be held on Zoom on Sunday February 6th.
The conference has been convened under the heading, 'Vote for a socialist recovery from the Covid crisis!', starting at 11am to conclude by 1-15pm.
Platform speakers from the constituent components of the TUSC steering committee - the RMT transport workers' union, the Socialist Party, Resist, and the Individual Members' representatives - will introduce the single plenary session.
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Vote for a socialist recovery from the Covid crisis! TUSC core policies for May’s elections
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee has now published the draft of the core policies TUSC candidates will be committed to fight for in the English local council elections that will take place in May 2022.
TUSC is an electoral coalition, offering the opportunity to trade unionists, community campaigners, socialists and others, to stand candidates under a common anti-austerity banner distinct from the mainstream, capitalist establishment politicians.
Having such an alternative on offer in May's contests, in which over 6,500 council seats will be elected, is even more vital in a situation where the establishment parties are united in seeking to make working class people pay for the effects of the Covid crisis, through cuts in public services, wages freezes, and rising prices and taxes. Local councils are responsible for over one fifth of all public spending.
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Councils are in the cuts frontline but TUSC report shows they can fightback
No one can dispute that local councils have borne the brunt of years of Tory austerity. Or that councils, and the vital local public services that they provide, will once again be in the frontline as the establishment politicians seek to pass on the costs of the Covid crisis to the working class in the months and years ahead.
As local authorities begin discussing their spending plans for 2022-2023, which they will finally agree at budget-setting meetings in February or March, we can already see the scale of the cuts that are being prepared. Manchester city council is talking about an £85 million budget shortfall within the next three years. While Liverpool is planning £19 million cuts next year, including 6% of its current spending on adult social care.
But a new report from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), How Much Reserves Have They Got?, (at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/456.pdf) shows that councils actually do have the resources to pass no cuts budgets next year - not as a long-term solution to the funding crisis, but as the first step in a mass campaign for more government funding.
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After Labour’s conference: join with TUSC to organise for the May 2022 elections
The first meeting after the Labour Party annual conference of the All-Britain Steering Committee of the left-wing Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) took place on October 6th. The meeting agreed that Labour's Brighton gathering marked a definitive break with the promise of fundamental change that had been offered by the previous Jeremy Corbyn leadership.
In response TUSC is issuing a call for the largest possible anti-austerity and socialist intervention to be organised in the local council elections scheduled for May 2022 - as a vital next step in the fightback against what is so clearly now a return to Tony Blair's New Labour politics.
The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist, a Labour MP from 1983-1992 and a former backbench colleague of Jeremy Corbyn, said: "All the components of the TUSC coalition1 had wholeheartedly supported Jeremy's anti-austerity policies and his defence of working class people against the 'rigged system' that serves the interests of the billionaires. We saw his leadership of the Labour Party as creating opportunities to achieve working class socialist political representation on a mass basis".
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The BFAWU bakers’ union agrees to disaffiliate from the Labour Party
A recall conference of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union (BFAWU) has voted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party, after 119 years of membership.
Following the receipt of an auto-expulsion letter from the Labour Party HQ by the president of the BFAWU, Ian Hodson, the union's executive had decided to recall the delegates who had attended their June conference for a special meeting on September 28 with the sole agenda item on whether the BFAWU should remain affiliated or not.
The following statement was issued by the union's general secretary, Sarah Woolley, after the historic vote, making it clear that the decision does certainly not mean that the union will "be leaving the political scene":
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Unite, the Bakers’ union, People’s Budget campaigning: a busy autumn ahead
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee met on September 8th to gear-up for a busy autumn of activity - against the backdrop of important new developments towards our coalition's core objective of achieving a new vehicle for workers' political representation.
Foremost was the announcement - days before the meeting - of the election of Sharon Graham as the new general secretary of Unite, with the commitment from her election campaign for a new 'Workers' Politics'. This includes a pledge to oppose bad employers by every means available, including local authority employers regardless of the party they represent.
The steering committee endorsed a draft letter from the TUSC chair Dave Nellist - to go to all members of the Unite executive council - expressing his sympathy with her disgust with Westminster parliamentary 'parlour games'; "as someone who was elected as a Labour MP from 1983 to 1992 on the pledge to be A Workers' MP on a Worker's Wage".
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New edition of the Preparing a No Cuts People’s Budget briefing launched
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee has republished the Preparing a No Cuts People's Budget briefing document we first produced in January 2016.
This follows the call made by the steering committee at its June meeting for all local TUSC groups, individual members, TUSC supporters and affiliated organisations in areas where they are active, to lay plans for the year ahead - focusing on local People's Budget campaigns.
As society continues to move on from a Covid-crisis footing, a local People's Budget campaign could play a central role in bringing together trade union branches, campaign groups and community organisations to fight at a council level for what communities will need in the 'new normal' - not the cuts to public services that Tory policies will inevitably demand. The new updated briefing document, available as a PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf, will be a crucial facilitator of such campaigns.
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TUSC committee makes call for local People’s Budget campaigns
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee is calling on all local TUSC groups, individual members, TUSC supporters and affiliated groups in areas where they are active, to begin to lay plans for the year ahead - focusing on local People's Budget campaigns.
The June meeting of the steering committee agreed that developing and promoting a local People's Budget could form the basis of a vibrant electoral challenge in the council elections scheduled for May 2022. There are over 200 councils with elections then, which will be all-up contests for every council seat in Scotland, Wales, the London boroughs and Birmingham, and with a third of councillors up for election in most of the rest (see the TUSC directory of the 2022 elections at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/448.pdf).
But the committee also agreed that other areas where there are no elections in May 2022 should not wait either. As society prepares to move on from the Covid pandemic a People's Budget campaign could play a central role in bringing trade union branches, campaigns and community groups together to fight at a local level for what communities will need, not what Tory austerity will demand.
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Forward planning: the TUSC directory of future elections
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) directory of the elections taking place in May 2022 has now been published.
This directory was an annual production, referenced once as a resource by the House of Commons Library in 2016, until the TUSC All-Britain Steering Committee decided to suspend its electoral activity under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party in late 2018.
But after the relaunch of TUSC in September last year in response to Keir Starmer's revival of Tony Blair-style New Labourism (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/17410/04-09-2020/back-at-work-tusc-to-stand-in-elections-again-against-pro-austerity-politicians) publication has been resumed.
Policies
TUSC will oppose all cuts to council jobs, services, pay and conditions. Reject increases in council tax, rent and service charges to compensate for government cuts. Vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services.
Support TUSC or find out more
TUSC has had hundreds of declarations of support. You can support TUSC as an individual trade unionist or socialist, or apply for your organisation to join TUSC.