Beware the UK’s 'community rights': the latest mutation of privatisation

Cutting through the coalition government’s rhetoric of localism and ‘community rights’, Dexter Whitfield exposes a strategy to further destabilise and fracture public provision, accelerating marketisation and privatisation. http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/dexter-whitfield/beware-uk%E2%80%99s-community-rights-latest-mutation-of-privatisation

Wasted Years by Titos Patríkios

    Twenty wasted years (but what
        would it mean to have gained them?)
        Fernando Pessoa
All of us have some wasted years
sometimes three, sometimes seven, sometimes more
but twenty makes a nice circle
we can hark back to the past around it
without the panic that comes
with the wasted years of an entire life.

IMF Releases A Discussion Paper On Banking and Monetary Reform - A Revolutionary Act!

We’ve been in a state of mild shock since last Saturday. We discovered one of the strongest advocates of monetary reform and full reserve banking in the institution where we would least expect it. The international Monetary Fund (IMF)has released a discussion paper “The Chicago Plan Revisited” that supports the proposals of US economist Irving Fisher – using state of the art economic modelling.

Who is Stella Creasey? Where has she been hiding?

“Labour should demand value for money from the state sector argues party’s ‘rising star’” http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/aug/14/labour-focus-value-for-money. Stella Creasey, Labour MP for Walthamstow made headlines yesterday in what must have been a “back to the future moment” for those of us involved in the public sector, or to quote the great Yogi Berra, déjà-vu all over again.

Spotlight on the Public Services Industrial Complex

Channel 4 News is running a very useful series of reports exposing the big players in privatisation and highlighting a lack of public accountability in procurement processes. http://www.channel4.com/news/do-you-know-who-runs-your-world

A Wasted Generation - over 20% of young people out of education and out of work

A new TUC analysis shows the grim economic realities facing young people in the UK today.

More than one in five (22%) of 16-24 year olds are currently unemployed, of which almost 500,000 have been jobless for more than six months: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21323-f0.cfm  

Sport investment: Headlines can be Sooooo Deceptive .....

Glasgow Herald – Monday.”Cameron’s Vow to invest millions in the run up to Rio”. The immediate response has got to be, well maybe the leopard can change his spots. Could the Prime Minister’s reaction to the real Olympic spirit have caused a complete sea change in his attitude? Has he responded to the camaraderie, the sense of belonging, the feeling of real community?

Colombia tribute: 'Kenny Bell lives and is with us!'

A year ago today we mourned the death of Kenny Bell. In Colombia, they marked the event with an inspirational commemoration that shows the remarkable impact Kenny had as an activist, and also the political importance of International Solidarity. In this moving and inspiring video the event pays tribute to “… a man who believed in the women sugar cane cutters, who believed in the women of Triana, who believed in the women of Madres por la Vida, who was in the indigenous reserves and walked with us, …. Kenny Bell lives and is with us!” http://youtu.be/GGI619krwu8

Opening the event, the speaker says: “Kenny isn’t here with us today physically but wherever he is he is accompanying us in spirit.... So everyone hand in hand, everyone singing together, all of us making possible the search for truth, justice and reparation, we are going to open this event which is named after Kenny Bell”.

Tory admission of private sector failure but let's promulgate the myths anyway!

The BBC reports that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has reflected on the G4S debacle and admits that it has challenged his thinking on private sector capability. But before we pop the champagne corks and celebrate the arrival of common sense into Tory party consensus let's take a closer look at what Hammond has actually said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19251772

PSI General Secretary Election - On Your Marks, Get Set, Go!

In 2007 at the Public Services International (PSI) Vienna Congress, Peter Waldorff, of the Danish trade union HK/Stat, narrowly defeated UNISON candidate Keith Sonnet in the election for PSI General Secretary. Five years on and Waldorff (pictured centre left) is facing a formidable challenge from Rosa Pavenelli (pictured centre) President of Italy’s FP CGIL trade union. UNISON will have a delegation at the PSI's upcoming Durban Congress (27-30 November) but is yet to nominate a candidate in the General Secretary election. PSI is a global trade union federation representing 20 million public service workers.
http://waldorff.org/endorsments/ | http://www.rosapavanelli.net/
http://congress.world-psi.org/about

How To Organise Non Union Workers, A Lesson From Historic Strike in Texas

The Texas Observer and SEIU report on a tremendous success for Janitors in Houston, Texas, a State where the legal and free market environment is amongst the toughest even in the USA.
http://www.texasobserver.org/authors/christomlinson/item/18633-why-the-houston-janitor-strike-was-historic

We are Fighters of FRELIMO by Jorge Rebelo

So many paths we have trodden!
So many people we have greeted
liberated
sheltered
fed
taugth
on our march!