2014 is UN Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian People - Make It Count

Many days or years are marked out for international commemorations but none is more important than the United Nations General Assembly decision to proclaim 2014 as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In the UK the Palestine Solidarity Campaign works tirelessly in support of justice for the Palestinian people and deserves the support of all UNISON activists and branches in the year ahead. Make it one of your New Year's resolutions to back the campaign!
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp/www.iaea.org/story.asp?NewsID=46578&Cr=Palestin&Cr1=
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

Get involved in the actions and passions of our time

A New Year Message from Denis Goldberg.
I hope 2014 will be a better year in the advance to a world that is fit for human beings. But it can only be better if we, all of us, make the effort to find ways to deal with the economic, social and political crises that the super rich countries of the world create as they continue to skew the benefits of our human capacity to invent, to find creative solutions that start to reverse the structured inequality of our society. It does need restructuring and we must do it.

A Happy and Peaceful New Year - and organise!

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom." Nelson Mandela.

After a year that saw the ConDems institutionalise poverty with the bedroom tax, child poverty rising, most of those in poverty being in work, and food banks becoming one of the few growth industries, let's organise for change in 2014.

Have a Happy and peaceful New Year and organise!

The future of unionised work is in our own hands

Union activists all over the world should read this account of the life of Shonda Roberts who works for KFC in San Jose, California. She lives in the richest economy in the world, the richest economy actually in the history of the world. This is an economy that sends armies and navies all over the world, that still maintains thousands of stock piled nuclear weapons, that generates trillions of dollars in investment and profit, that can boycott Cuba and subsidise Israel. This economy can maintain a differential between lowest paid workers wages and CEO of an average of 1 dollar to 475 dollars. The US economy can cause bust or boom across Europe. It can plunge the world in depression when its sub prime market collapses.

Unions in 2014 - big chance or no chance?

In a Guardian interview over the holiday period TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady was upbeat on union prospects next year: ‘Our big chance will be in 2014 because we are going to see confidence return as unemployment dips and the economy recovers’. Not for the first time the TUC is looking to the USA for a campaign model - where unions such as SEIU have formed impressive worker led coalitions of civic groups and local politicians in support of workers’ rights in fast food chains.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/tuc-frances-ogrady-rebuild-union-membership

A Christmas Tale from King’s (Cross) - A Wise Man Writes...

Even UNISONActive loves a good Christmas story, and the Guardian has provided a tale will all the best ingredients – Santa, the elves, Lapland... and an explanation of exactly where Tory policies are taking us. Read it and make one New Year’s resolution, to get rid of this government. Oh yes you will.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2013/dec/22/santa-elves-living-standards-surveillance

Back your local firefighters

Tonight members of the Fire Brigades Union will be taking further strike action across England and Wales in defence of their pensions. Strikes will take place between: 7pm and midnight on Tuesday 24 December; 6.30pm on Tuesday 31 December and 12.30am on Wednesday 1 January and 6.30am and 8.30am on Friday 3 January. FBU members in Scotland will join in a Britain wide voluntary overtime ban next weekend. Show some festive solidarity with FBU pickets at your local fire station this evening!
http://www.fbu.org.uk/archives/9243

10 reasons to oppose Trade Unions

Barry Deutsch http://leftycartoons.com/ten-reasons-were-against-unions/

Never mind Democracy feel the Zero-Based Review

Ahead of the 2015 general election, the Labour Party has published a discussion document on the future of public services. According to the New Statesman, ‘Labour’s Zero-Based Review’ contains the ‘most explicit statement yet that the party will cut departmental spending in 2015-16 and will not borrow to meet day-to-day spending’. A prospectus of an incoming Labour Government continuing the austerity squeeze on public services will be greeted with dismay by trade unionists and Labour supporters. And while the document embraces concepts such as ‘iron discipline’ and ‘value for money’ readers will search in vain for any reference to enhancing ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic accountability’
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/12/balls-reaffirms-labours-commitment-cuts-2015
http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/uploads/editor/files/Zero_Based_Review.pdf

Earthquake by Aimé Césaire

such great stretches of dreamscape

such lines of all too familiar lines

                                         staved in

caved in so the filthy wake resounds with the notion

of the pair of us? What of the pair of us?