Let the Millionaire Walk Naked by César Vallejo

Let the millionaire walk naked, stark naked!
Disgrace for whoever builds his death bed with treasures!
A world for whoever greets;
an armchair for whoever sows in the sky;
sobbing for whoever finishes what he makes, keeping the beginnings;

Outsourcing is a dead end of low pay & casualisation

The G4S Olympics security debacle, is the latest in a long list of fundamental service failures caused by outsourcing, writes Natalie Bennet in the New Statesman: 'The outsourcing of hospital cleaners contributed to a rise in hospital-acquired infections and super-bugs. Multiple government IT projects have gone seriously and expensively off the rails. Then there’s the still unfolding scandal of the ruinously expensive PFI scheme for hospitals (and other public institutions such as schools) which has just claimed its first victim, with the South London Healthcare NHS Trust going into administration. And railways and the Tube, and call centres…. the list goes on and on'
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/voices/2012/07/g4s-just-latest-long-line-outsourcing-disasters

'They came in the morning' - the harrowing reality of Palestinian dispossession

#ShortsLucky13 The following short film "They came in the morning" is filmed in Walaja and uses footage shot over five critical years in the life of Bethlehem during the making of upcoming feature film "Operation Bethlehem".

Goodbye to Keith Sonnet

After almost 40 years service UNISON Deputy General Secretary Keith Sonnet has left the union. Last night in London colleagues, comrades and friends met in UNISON head office to mark Keith’s contribution to UNISON and the wider labour movement.

Dodging the issues. Again!

Yet again the Tax Dodgers alliance has misrepresented the true position on the future funding of public sector pensions by presenting as fact their own flawed assumptions on the LGPS.

The O'Grady Bunch

It may have taken well over a hundred years to get here but the TUC is now to be led by a woman (Frances O'Grady). It is an historic moment for the movement but also a timely one. Women are disproportionately impacted by the savage cuts in public spending and economic decline. The progress, albeit slow, in recent decades on equal pay, is under threat from regional pay bargaining, the public sector pay freeze and regressive Tory policies on employment rights.  http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-21198-f0.cfm

Slutwalk Edinburgh

Last Saturday, around 70 people braved Edinburgh's summer weather to take a stand against the victim-blaming culture that surrounds sexual assaults. A year on from the birth of the global movement that was sparked by the ministrations of a Toronto police officer to a group of young female students - that to prevent sexual attacks, "women should avoid dressing like sluts", the issue hasn't gone away. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/121173

Who Cares?

There has been much talk of late about the need to integrate health and social care. UNISON members working in the NHS and the care sector understand the need for more joined up thinking but the problems facing front line staff are now being given some attention by economists and leader writers.

UNISON Labour Link Forum 2012: Day 2‏

Saturday was the second (and last) day of this year's Forum in Cardiff. Check out the report on day one here. The traditional Labour Link Social had been held the previous night and "a good time had been had by all" (it also raised money for UNISON welfare).

Spanish civil war heroes remembered

On Saturday the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) annual commemoration took place at the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens, London.
Here are two photographs from the event, including one of International Brigade veteran David Lomon, 93, being presented with a Spanish Republican flag by Almudena Cros of the Madrid-based Friends of the International Brigades. Rodney Bickerstaffe reminded those present that in 1936 the Spanish republican government boycotted the Berlin Olympics because they "knew what the Nazis were about".
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/121172