Standing up to devastating Welsh Government cuts to adult learning

Trade unionists from Welsh colleges took our ongoing fight against Welsh Government cuts to Further Education to the Assembly buildings today.

These cuts threaten jobs in colleges across Wales but more than that, they threaten the broad range of courses on offer in FE colleges. This is particularly the case for adult learners as adult training and learning faces a 50% cut to funding in the next year.

Only a handful of AMs bothered to come and talk to protestors but we were joined and supported by FE students and by TUSC supporters, including Jaime Davies, Parliamentary Candidate for Caerphilly.

Reverse all cuts! Fund Further Education so that we can do our jobs and continue to provide the quality education that people in our communities need.

Standing up for Further Education against Welsh Government Cuts

Yesterday (22 April) staff and students - organised by the Joint Trade Unions representing FE workers - in Welsh Colleges took part in protests against Welsh Government cuts to Further Education.

Early reports are that the events were well supported all across Wales, which fits with my experience in Gower College Swansea. At Gorseinon, where I work, the joint trade unions put out a call for people to gather at 1pm at the main gate and workers and students responded enthusiastically.

There was an upbeat atmosphere but a quiet determination to stand up for the broad range of quality learning and training opportunities we provide, particularly for adult education, which is seeing a 50% cut in funding in a single year!

The range of chances for adult learners in our communities, that colleges provide, will be seriously reduced if these cuts go through and where learners can find courses they could be much more expensive as colleges have to pass on the full cost price to learners. This is likely to price many out of education and training. Has the Welsh Government abandoned the principle of 'lifelong learning' in its willingness to pass on Con-Dem cuts?

Workers and students were clear what they think of Welsh Labour cuts to Further Education, summed up in the placard made by one lecturer - betrayal! Next Wednesday (29 April) we take our protests to the Welsh Government's doorstep as we demand they reconsider and give us the resources we need to deliver the high quality education we're proud of.

TUSC, as the only 100% anti-austerity party contesting the election on May 7th stands shoulder to shoulder with all those standing up for Further Education.

Ronnie Job, TUSC candidate Swansea West

Oppose Welsh Government cuts to Further Education as well as Con-Dem ones

A response to an email from a constituent about opposing FE cuts..

Thank you for your email. I am happy to sign the petition but I notice it only refers to English FE cuts.

Unfortunately the Welsh Government, with its willingness to pass on Con-Dem cuts is also making deep cuts to Further Education, particularly adult education.

I am a Unison steward in a college in Wales. On Wednesday (April 22) I am urging my members to join the lunchtime gate protests that are taking place in colleges across Wales against Welsh Government cuts to Further Education.

The following Wednesday (29 April) trade unionists from colleges around Wales will be lobbying the Assembly to Hal these cuts. Hopefully students will also join us.

These Welsh Government cuts are not only a threat to the jobs and conditions of my union members and workmates but also to the opportunities that exist for learning and training in Wales.

If you look at the Swansea TUSC blog: http://tuscswansea.blogspot.com/ you will find a number of posts about FE cuts in Wales. If you agree with what is written then please share and help us to oppose cuts.

Thanks,

Ronnie Job
Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate, Swansea West

FE workers prepare to fight back against Welsh Government cuts

It was no accident that today's media launch for the Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition in Wales took place outside a college. The cuts in Further Education now taking place across Wales are a perfect example of how Welsh Labour is prepared to pass on Con-Dem cuts.

The cuts now taking place in Welsh colleges threaten hundreds of jobs and will represent a reduction in learning opportunities for people across Wales, particularly for adults and part-time learners. It would mean the end of the principle of 'lifelong learning' - of learning and training opportunities from cradle to grave. Courses will be harder to find and even where available the cost may be prohibitive for many.

The cuts are directly as a result of reducing central funding and other streams of income from the Welsh Government. They are exacerbated by the willingness of the Welsh Government to award training contracts, previously delivered by professional staff from FE colleges, to private and third sector providers, some of whom don't even recognise unions.

But FE workers are not taking this lying down. An initiative from the lecturers' union, UCU to begin a campaign to put pressure on the Welsh Government to reconsider, is being backed now, I'm glad to say by my union, UNISON, and other campus unions.

Next Wednesday, 22 April, there will be college gate, lunchtime, protests by FE workers to be followed by a lobby of the Welsh Assembly the following Wednesday, 29 April. These could be really well attended and will be backed by the majority of students.

A lot of FE workers will recognise that only co-ordinated national action by campus unions is likely to be needed to force the Welsh Government to rethink. These protests will be important in alerting students and communities to the dangers for education and in building the confidence in FE workers for the fight ahead.

TUSC support for cycling as part of a sustainable transport policy

CTC, the national cycling charity, has been encouraging its members to write to candidates in the election to query their support for cycling generally and a 5-point programme in particular:

1. Leadership and ambition to increase cycling levels.
2. Sustained funding commitment from the national transport budget.
3. Cycle-friendly design standards for all new highway and traffic schemes.
4. Improved safety for cycling through strengthening road traffic law and revisions to the Highway Code.
5. Positive promotion of cycling including funding of cycle skills training.

TUSC recognises that enabling more people to enjoy cycling in safety for both work and leisure would be an important part of establishing a sustainable transport policy, as well as having enormous potential health benefits. While there are cycle routes locally, there is obviously still a long way to go in terms of making cycling a safe and pleasurable means of getting about.

It should be possible to be able to cycle anywhere without being constantly at risk from traffic or from accidents or damage caused by potholes and deteriorating roads. Cut to Council services - our Labour councillors are planning £80 million+ of cuts over the next 3 years - are a threat to further developments of cycle routes locally and mean that all road users have cause for concern about the state of our roads.

In order to make cycling a viable every-day means of transportation it would also be necessary to invest in secure storage at every workplace and public facility.

To carry out the 5 point programme above and to commit to the improvement in facilities for cyclists that's needed in Swansea would require substantial funding. That would mean the Council and governments in Westminster and Cardiff not only halting but reversing cuts. For this programme to be anything more than an aspiration requires a commitment to end austerity; as the only all-out anti-cuts party contesting the election, I'd argue that only TUSC candidates have the will to do what's needed for cyclists.

Ronnie Job, TUSC candidate, Swansea West

Redundancies in Swansea schools as Labour education cuts bite

According to the Post, NUT workplace reps and officers are facing a busy time as the reality of what Council schools funding cuts mean starts to become clear. They are holding 22 meetings over likely redundancies as schools start identifying how many staff they need to lose because of Swansea Labour's cuts.

Swansea Cabinet member for education, Cllr Raynor is saying that it is 'only' 1 or 2 staff per school but unions and heads seem to think some schools are facing much bigger cuts than that. And the bad news is that this is only year 1 of a projected 3 years of 5%, year on year, cuts to funding for schools and education. That's  £24 million Labour councillors voted to cut from our children's schools over the next 3 years

When TUSC supporters challenged Labour councillors over these devastating cuts to schools at the Council budget-setting meeting, Council Leader, Rob Stewart, said he didn't recognise the picture we painted of redundancies for teaching and other staff and increased class sizes.

But when primary school heads were asked, by the Council, to predict the likely consequences of these cuts, they forecast that they would not be able to meet the statutory requirement  to teach 5-7 year olds in classes of 30 or less and that, in some cases, older primary school students could end up in classes of 42+!

And still Labour councillors claim to be "protecting education", although they do sometimes qualify it with the word 'relatively'. In other words, they're making deep cuts in education but they're cutting deeper elsewhere.

If you're feed up with Welsh Labour representatives passing on Con-Dem cuts then what can you do to help TUSC in the General Election?

Welsh Labour can't escape responsibility for devastating FE cuts

This is a follow up to yesterday's article on FE cuts.

An early day motion supported by all the main unions in further education, calling for the reversal of devastating cuts in FE provision, now has the support of over 50 MPs.

Scanning the list I noticed that at least one Welsh Labour MP, Martin Caton, representing Gower, has signed. Gower College Swansea, which has one of its two main campuses in Martin's constituency, like pretty much every college in Wales, is facing up to huge cuts in funding. It is also, again like many other Welsh colleges, suffering from the Welsh Government's insistence on awarding many training contracts to private providers.

TUSC calls on Martin, who is stepping down at the General Election, to condemn his colleagues from the Labour Party, in the Welsh Government, for passing on Con-Dem cuts and to demand they reconsider. If these cuts are not urgently reversed then, should Labour win in May, then we will have a Labour Government in Westminster and a Labour Government in Cardiff, presiding over devastating cuts to further education in Wales.

If you are an education worker, student or a worker considering re-training, then Welsh Labour is letting you down badly; find out how you can build TUSC and defend education.

Will Welsh Labour be gravediggers of lifelong learning?

It wasn't so long ago that the Welsh Government was making a commitment to 'Lifelong Learning' - equality of opportunity in learning and training throughout life a key stone of education policy in Wales. But like pretty much everything else that Labour used to believe in, that idea is being sacrificed on the altar of obedience to austerity and sticking to Con-Dem spending limits.

Welsh Further Education (FE) colleges are now facing up to a 50% cut in funding for most part time provision. This is on top of a general so-called "efficiency saving" - that's an obscure way of saying "cut" to those of us who work in further education. The result is jobs, courses and maybe whole colleges are put at risk.

The Welsh Government has just awarded a number of its latest work based learning contracts to private or 'third-sector' providers, some of whom don't even recognise trade unions. So much for the promise I heard First Minister, Carwyn Jones, make to the Wales TUC in 2013, that there is no room for outsourcing of public services in Wales!

Or does Welsh Labour no longer consider education and training to be an essential public service? Their willingness to continue to pass on destructive Con-Dem cuts to funding for further education in Wales, even when they hope and expect to have a Labour Government in Westminster in a couple of months, would seem to suggest that this is the case. It also says that they know as well as the rest of us that Labour in Westminster will continue with both austerity and underfunding Wales.

We're in a fight for the very future of further education in Wales and what is needed now is national action from trade unionists to secure the funding we need to continue to provide the quality training and education that college workers pride ourselves on. My experiences of being at the sharp end of Welsh Labour cuts in further education confirms for me the correctness of standing for TUSC, to provide hope and an alternative to the cuts-consensus. If you're a public sector worker in a service like FE, threatened by Welsh Labour's acceptance of Con-Dem austerity, isn't it time you checked out TUSC for yourself?

Swansea Labour Council's Cuts are taking us backwards

"Time stands still" reads the article in the Evening Post, in a story about how council  cuts have led to a number of publicly visible clicks around the city being set to, and remaining at, 12.00 as they are not being wound.

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Clocks-stop-maintenance-man-winds/story-26106853-detail/story.html

As far as services are concerned though, Swansea's Labour Council is taking us backwards.

A £27 million cut in funding for jobs and services this year alone (projected £80million+ over 3 years) means everything that isn't a statutory requirement and probably some that are, is likely to be cut.

We must call time on cuts and all parties, including Labour, voting for them. TUSC, with 8 candidates already announced in Wales and more in the pipeline, is the only party putting a consistent no-cuts position in the General Election in Wales. Contact us to find out how you can help build the TUSC alternative.

Welsh Labour takes a break from making Tory cuts.. For 2 days only before normal service resumes!

Welsh Labour councillors and Assembly Members have taken a couple of days off from making devastating cuts to jobs and services this weekend for the pre-election rally that is Welsh Labour Conference.

Up until this weekend the pace of cuts announcements has been relentless; on the eve of Conference news came out that Cardiff's Labour-led council will shed nearly 600 jobs.

One area among many devastated by Welsh Labour cuts is education. Conference is being held in Swansea, home to a majority Labour council which is proposing to slash £24 million, 15% of the current budget, from education and schools, over the next 3 years.

Welsh Labour still claims to be protecting education but when Swansea primary heads were asked what cuts of this scale would mean they painted a picture of job losses for teachers and other education workers. They predict that it will be impossible to meet the statutory requirement to teach 5-7 year olds in maximum class sizes of 30 and that older primary pupils will be taught, in a number of cases in classes of 42+.

Cuts to their members' jobs didn't stop NUT Cymru tweeting pictures of Welsh Labour politicians from its stall inside the Conference. Welsh trade unions continue their unrequited love for Welsh Labour despite Labour's ongoing willingness to implement Con-Dem cuts. But their membership will not tolerate this for ever; already many trade unionists are turning their backs in Labour - 4 members of the NUT NEC will stand under the TUSC banner in May.

The Welsh Government is as guilty of vandalising education as Welsh councils. Further education colleges are reeling from cuts to various funding streams which will mean some colleges losing well over 10% of their funding. A 50% reduction in funds for and volumes of, post 19 education is a massive blow not only to workers in further education but to the communities they serve.

Once Miliband and the rest return to Westminster, normal service will be resumed as far as Welsh Labour making Tory cuts is concerned. Over the next few weeks, Labour councillors will vote on £millions of cuts to jobs and services in annual budget-seeing meetings. Miliband is promising to continue with austerity but anybody who doubts he means it should take a look at Wales, where Welsh Labour has been a conveyor belt for Tory cuts.

Trade unionists, socialists and people whose services are under threat will oppose the cuts proposals of councils and the Senedd and more and more will draw the conclusion we need a political alternative.

TUSC Wales already has an impressive list of trade unionist candidates for the General Election but there's still time for others frustrated by the cuts-consensus to join with us to ensure as many people in Wales as possible get the opportunity to vote for a real no-cuts alternative.

TUSC to offer support to lobby of Council Cabinet

Swansea TUSC supporters will be standing with Swansea Trades Council representatives and defenders of council services when they lobby the special Cabinet Meeting (Civic Centre, February 10, from 4pm).


This meeting will decide where the axe will fall - whose jobs are at risk, what services will be reduced, privatised or even axed altogether - as they decide which cuts to propose to the full Council budget-setting meeting on February 24.


Swansea Labour councillors, like their colleagues across the country, seem to see their role as parcelling out Con-Dem cuts. TUSC thinks we need representatives who will fight Tory cuts not implement them.
We will be holding a ballot in Swansea this Saturday, 1.30pm, in Oxford Street, to ask the people of Swansea if they agree that our representatives should fight cuts not make them.


We encourage everybody who's worried that a service they hold dear is under threat - library, school breakfast club, Plantasia, playing fields, West Glamorgan Youth Theatre, etc - to also come along on February 10 and on February 24 demand councillors reconsider. Ask councillors to do what they were elected for to defend jobs and stand up for services.


Lobby City & County of Swansea, Special Cabinet Meeting, 4pm, Civic Centre, Feb 10 to demand councillors reconsider £27 million cuts.

Building a socialist no-cuts alternative

I see Nigel Farage is charging £25/head for people to meet and talk with him next month in Port Talbot. You couldn't pay me enough to talk with that privileged, Thatcherite phoney. UKIP pose as anti-establishment but like ex stock broker, Farage, it's all an act. He's no man of the people, no matter how many pints or bacon butties he poses with for the cameras.

For £25 this weekend it's possible to meet and discuss with genuine, working class, anti-cuts fighters who're overcoming all odds to defeat the establishment, at the Socialist Party's annual education event, Socialism. 

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate, Ronnie Job, and fellow  TUSC supporters have been out campaigning on a Saturday around Uplands Shops but this weekend we'll be attending Socialism 2014.

There we'll get to hear and learn from co-thinkers around the world, like Kshama Sawant, who's election as a council member in Seattle with well over 90,000 votes, was pivotal in winning a $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle.

Other socialist elected representatives speaking will include Ruth Coppinger TD (MP) who, following the recent election of Paul Murphy, is now one of three TDs in Dublin who are members of the Socialist Party in Ireland.

Around the world mainstream parties are disintegrating. People are crying out for an alternative and where socialists have been able to challenge with a clear anti-cuts platform they've had some spectacular successes.

That is what we are building towards with TUSC. There are already a handful of TUSC councillors, committed to voting and fighting all cuts. To date, they're disillusioned former Labour Party members unwilling to vote for Labour cuts and driven out of their own party. In May of next year, TUSC aims to stand a 1,000 council candidates in England (there are no elections in Wales) and contest 100 MPs positions.

The Uplands by-election is a small part in building TUSC as a real socialist alternative, based on basic trade union principles of struggle, solidarity and socialism. If you live in Uplands, vote Ronnie Job, TUSC Against Cuts on November 20. Wherever you live, consider how you could help to ensure that there is socialist, no-cuts, TUSC candidate to vote for in the General Election in May.

Uplands shoppers - we'll see you again on the 15th for the final weekend of campaigning before the by-election.

Swansea Labour takes to streets.. to make Con-Dem cuts

Swansea's Labour councillors have been taking to the streets on the issue of cuts..

BUT not to fight them. They're part of a PR campaign for £45 million of Con-Dem cuts. They want our help in identifying which services to axe or outsource and which groups of workers to sack.

If a Labour councillor approaches you to help them identify Con-Dem cuts, tell them to resign. Then maybe we can get representatives who will fight the Con-Dems not make their cuts.

Ronnie Job, TUSC Wales supporter

Don't let Swansea's Labour council throw you overboard!

Swansea’s Labour Council will make £45 million of cuts to services and jobs over the next 3 years and they want your help to do it!

The Council’s consultation on what services to cut, as they attempt to make £45 million of cuts, is called ‘Sustainable Swansea’. I tried the web page advertised in the booklet of the same name that the Council has issued; it didn’t work and I got an invalid website message! Not an auspicious start, especially as one of the ideas they put forward to save money is to “Create online digital services so they can normally be the first point of contact with the council.”

“Should the council reduce the number of people it employs?” is one question posed in the consultation. It is quite clear that the Council sees a large part of its savings coming from cuts affecting council staff. The booklet tries to create the impression that these can be achieved through “..voluntary changes to contracts, early retirement and voluntary redundancy.” The idea that workforce changes would be voluntary cannot be taken seriously when, at the moment, the Council is trying to force through cuts to workers’ terms and conditions and council workers have been told to ‘sign or be sacked’.

Services will also be slashed; the booklet makes clear that “..we will not have the money to continue to do all that we do now.” Those services that survive the cuts could well be a lot less accessible to the people that need them most. ‘Value for money’ is a phrase repeated throughout the booklet and there is a proposal to, “Reduce subsidies to services, increase or introduce charges” for council services.

In his Evening Post column, Labour Council Leader, David Phillips, used a strange analogy; he suggested that if the council now is a super-tanker, after the cuts it will be a speedboat. A speedboat might be faster but it only of use to a select few. Does he plan to throw overboard most of the workforce and council service users? Don’t let Labour cut you adrift without a life-jacket, throw them out instead and get councillors who will represent us and fight cuts not implement them. Build Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) as an alternative to fight all cuts and march, protest and strike together, council workers and council service users united, to defeat these cuts.
Ronnie Job, potential TUSC candidate in next Council/Assembly elections

This is a response sent to the Evening Post to today's column 'From a tanker to a speed boat' by Labour council leader, David Phillips, outlining the options the council is looking at to make £45 million cuts.

Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour to make cuts together?

As Labour Councils in Wales are proving more and more willing to pass on Con-Dem cuts, making a mockery of the claim made by too many Labour-supporting trade union leaders in Wales that the Welsh Government protects Welsh workers from the worst of Con-Dem cuts, some trade unionists may be tempted to look at Plaid Cymru as a left alternative.

There couldn't be a starker demonstration that Plaid Cymru is another 'cuts' party, ready and willing to attack public sector workers and the services they provide than the offer publically made this week by Plaid Cymru to join the ruling Labour Group in a formal coalition on Carmarthenshire Council and assist them to find up to £18 million of cuts. The leader of the Labour Group has stated the Council needs to implement what he calls a 'tsunami of cuts' and Plaid Cymru councillors want to help him identify which groups of workers or which services will suffer to pay for them! Plaid Cymru with this statement, confirms its position in the 4 parties of cuts in Wales.

There are no planned council elections in Wales next year, meaning the next chance that most of us will get to vote is the general election. We need to build the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Wales now in order that we can provide a genuine, fighting, socialist alternative to workers, trade unionists and working class communities in Wales. The Con-Dems have 4 parties to carry out their cuts in Wales, isn't it time we had an alternative to fight them?

Welsh Labour's seismic council cuts

The level of cuts being implemented by Welsh Labour Councils is now so great that only geological terms will suffice to give an idea of their size. Carmarthenshire Council's Labour leader has described the potential £18 million savings as a "tsunami of cuts". Now Newport's Labour leader is trying to get support from other parties to identify cuts of up to £14 million, which he describes as "seismic change".

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/10598026.Newport_council_set_for____seismic____change_in_wake_of_cuts/?ref=rss

It is clear that Welsh Labour councils have no intention of standing up to the Con-Dems and that they will pass on the full level of cuts, albeit with "glum faces" as in Blaenau Gwent.

The working class communities of Wales don't need sad makers of cuts; we need representatives that will vote to protect our jobs and services. It is clear that we need an earthquake in political representation to match the scale of the task ahead. Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Wales is pledged to fight and vote against all cuts and to fight for the needs of working class people and their communities.

Wales NHS cuts - fight or download a phone app?

Your local Accident and Emergency Unit being shut down? Don’t worry – your Welsh Labour Government has got an app for that!

As queues of ambulances were building outside Welsh Hospitals this week and non-emergency operations were being cancelled as staff were diverted elsewhere, did the Welsh Government pause to re-consider their plans to shut and downgrade Accident & Emergency services across Wales? No. Instead they’ve told us not to worry because they’ve got a free phone app for us to download!

On the Welsh Government’s website it says: “The free to download Choose Well application provides advice on which service to use when ill or injured and details of how to find them.” http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/healthandsocialcare/2013/130313ae/?lang=en

Great but if the Welsh Government’s plans go through, finding the service you need will be difficult; they intend to close all specialist neo-natal care in North Wales, forcing people to travel to the Wirral and to have only 4, or 5 at most, A&E units for the whole of South Wales.

The people of Wales do need to choose well on the NHS. We need to choose never to trust Labour on our health services again. Instead we need to unite our different campaigns and fight all NHS cuts in Wales and build a political alternative, TUSC.