May Day March - No Cuts, No Bedroom Tax, No Evictions, No Privatisation - Saturday 04 May 2013 - 12:00.

Join the Leeds Trades Union Council annual march for May Day.

This year we are marching against self defeating Austerity and for an alternative economic programme which will create jobs and raise living standards.

NO to CUTS
NO to the BEDROOM TAX
NO to EVICTIONS
and NO to PRIVATISATION.

Join us and bring your banners, family and friends on Saturday 04 May 2013.

Assemble in Victoria Gardens opposite Leeds Arts Gallery from 11:00 am.
March to start at Noon.
Rally will start at 12:30.

Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/511256238934146/?fref=ts

Unite The Resistance Public Meeting - Wednesday 01 May 2013

All welcome to hear Mark Serwotka - General Secretary of PCS talk about the way forward for British trade unions and socialists against austerity.

Wednesday 01 May 2013, 6:00pm at Lecture Theatre A, Rosebowl, Leeds Met Uni.


Public Meeting with:

Mark Serwotka - PCS General Secretary
Alex Gordon - Former RMT President
Dave Williams - FBU pc
Liz Kitchen - Hands Off Our Homes
Paul Holmes - Unison pc

Next Leeds Against the Cuts Public Meeting on Wednesday 24 April 2013 at 18:00

Everyone who wants to oppose the vicious cuts to vital public services in Leeds is welcome to attend our next meeting on Wednesday 24 April 2013 at 18:00.

The meeting will take place in the conference room at Leeds Trades Union Council Centre:

88 North Street
Leeds
LS2 7PN

1000 Marched against the Bedroom Tax on Saturday

The Stop The Bedroom Tax protest on Saturday was a massive success for Hands Off Our Homes and their campaign to Stop the Bedroom Tax.

The demonstration was lively, noisy and made a great impression with many people joining the march and demonstration as it made its way around the city centre.

The Rally heard some great passionate speeches from both those affected by the Bedroom Tax and those who attended the march to support them in Solidarity.

Reports can be seen below:

Yorkshire Evening Post

ITV (With Video Report)

Stop the Bedroom Tax This Saturday - April 20th - 12 Noon - Outside Leeds Art Gallery

Stop The Bedroom Tax - This Saturday - 20 April 2013 - 12:00 - Outside Leeds Arts Gallery

Stop the Bedroom Tax - No Evictions!

Organised by Hands Off Our Homes. 

Big Demo in Leeds City Centre calling for no evictions due to the bedroom tax and an axing of the tax. Together we can defend our homes! This is a protest to show our strength and what can happen if we get together and get organised.

Bring Banners, Placards and invite your family and friends.

Saturday 20 April 2013 - 12:00, Victoria Gardens outside the Art Gallery.

You can join the Facebook Event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/431824633566630/

and Hands Off Our Homes Here: https://www.facebook.com/HandsOffOurHomes

Picture Round Up of Trade Union Events Last Week

Unison and Unite members at Leeds University held a lobby of the University council on Thursday 29th November against proposals to attack their pensions

Leeds and York Unison Community Health branch held a well attended meeting chaired by Leeds TUC President Sheila Banks on Thursday 29 November against the governments cuts to the NHS.

PCS DVLA members in Leeds joined a national strike on Friday 30 November against plans to close all 39 local DVLA offices in the country as well as other attacks on the Department for Transport.

GMB members at the Leeds Remploy factory, and their supporters, held a mock funeral on Friday 30th November to mark the closing of their factory.

West Yorkshire FBU handed in over 10,000 signatures on Friday 30 November against plans to cut the fire service, including 11 less fire stations, 19 less fire engines and around 360 less fire-fighters jobs.

Tell the West Yorkshire Fire Service you oppose cuts before 30 November 2012

The West Yorkshire Fire Service consultation on cuts to our first service ends on 30 November 2012.

You can read the official consultation document HERE:

and you can read the view of the Fire Brigades Union on the proposed cuts HERE:

You can also see some extremely good arguments against the proposed cuts at: http://firecutscostlives.blogspot.co.uk

Please let the West Yorkshire Fire Service know your views by either sending a letter to:


Hannah Stoneman
Consultation Coordinator
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters
Oakroyd Hall, Bradford Road, Birkenshaw
West Yorkshire
BD11 2DY


or e-mailing: consultation@westyorksfire.gov.uk

Stop the cuts to your West Yorkshire Fire Service

The West Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has called for a mass march and rally to protest against the cuts to Fire Stations and staff in West Yorkshire.

On Saturday 03 November 2012 The March will start at 12:30 outside the Art Gallery on the Headrow in Leeds and march around the city centre followed by a Rally with speakers including Matt Wrack the general secretary of the FBU.

Please attend to show your opposition to the decimation of your fire service.

Leeds TUC Public Meeting for A Future That Works

Please attend the Leeds TUC Public Meeting for A Future That Works.

Mark Serwotka - General Secretary of the Public and Comercial Services (PCS) Union will be speaker plus many more.

The meeting is on Wednesday 19 September 2012 at 6pm.

Please attend and book your coach for the March for a future that works in London on Saturday 20 October 2012.

To get your ticket call 07904 045320 or e-mail: secretary@Leeds-tuc.org.uk.

Tickets are £10 waged or £1 unwaged.

Local councillors and union launch campaign against Royal Mail office closure

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) and ALL councillors in the WF15/16 postcode area have launched a campaign against the closure of the Heckmondwike Delivery Office by Royal Mail.

Heckmondwike DO office has served the local community in the Heckmondwike & Liversedge postcode for many years. Residents can use the office to pick up parcels, redirect or hold mail, and access other services. 

  

However in March 2012, Royal Mail announced plans to close the Heckmondwike Delivery Office by August 2012 and move operations to Batley Delivery Office on Grange Road, Batley.

  

The closure has been announced without consulting the Community and its elected councillors or MPs, or the workers and their union (CWU). Local Councillors and the CWU are calling on Royal Mail to keep the office open. 

For residents of Heckmondwike and Liversedge collecting parcels will mean the journey to Grange Road in Batley which at present has no bus service to it.

For businesses it could mean a disruption in service.

It will severely hamper our elderley and disabled People being able to collect Items- batley is not on a Bus Route.

"Councillor Statements"

Royal Mail Delivery Staff are not happy either, since most have worked at the office for nearly a decade and live locally. While receiving travel allowances for three years, ultimately they will have to pay more and travel longer to get to work.

Several are worried they may struggle to pick up their children from school if the move means later start times and longer travelling times. While Royal Mail has stated that nobody will lose their job, some workers may not have a place at Batley Delivery Office and are unsure where in the Wakefield area they may end up working.

  

Local CWU branch secretary Andy Lee explained: “In my opinion closing Heckmondwike Delivery Office would effect the quality of service offered to local residents and businesses and would be an unnecessary disruption to our member's current working life. I

There is no rationale behind Royal Mail’s announcement other than the money they will gain by selling the site".

  

The CWU Leeds No.1 Amalgamated Branch and Local Councillors have launched a campaign to keep the office open, in order to keep on serving the community. They are campaigning on the internet and in the local area with a petition's and leaflets. 

For businesses and residents please contact:

Andy Lee

Central Secretary

Leeds No.1 Amalgamated Branch

Communication Workers Union

Suite 6e

Josephs Well

Hanover Walk

Leeds

LS3 1AB

Tel: 0113 2341312 (Office)

       07958760045  (Mobile)

Fax: 0113 2341307

Email: andylee@cwuleeds.freeserve.co.uk

The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Paul Blackledge

Professor Paul Blackledge is to hold his Inaugural Lecture on Wednesday 13 June 2012 at the Rose Bowl, Leeds Met University City Campus at 17:30.

If you wish to attend please RSVP to: eventstream@leedsmet.ac.uk

Professor Paul Blackledge

Professor Paul Blackledge is a political theorist working within the classical Marxist tradition. His most recent works include a monograph, Marxism and Ethics: Freedom, Desire and Revolution, and a coedited collection, Virtue and Politics. In these books he articulated a Hegelian Marxist ethic through the lens of a neo-Aristotelian critique of liberalism and capitalism. The understanding of Marxism developed in these books builds upon arguments first presented in his second monograph, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History, and in a series of related articles.

Beyond the Impasse of the Modern Moral
Point of View: Towards an Ethical Marxism

The lecture takes as its starting point Raymond Geuss’s claim that contemporary moral philosophy “has little to tell us about real politics”. According to Geuss this failure stems from the way that the Kantian colouration  of most modern normative theory informs a tendency to separate discussions of what ought to be from questions of what is. It is precisely because we live in a world in which ethics has been reduced to an emotivist caricature of itself that Marx was scathing in his criticisms of moral discourse. This has often led commentators to erroneously claim that he had no interest in ethical theory. The opposite is the case. It was because Marx understood the social basis for our emotivist culture that he was able to grasp that competing moral claims would tend towards incommensurability, and thus that moralistic politics would take the form of “impotence in action”. Unfortunately, because Marx’s critics largely naturalise the modern moral point of view they tend to interpret his rejection of the moral form as evidence either of a crude mechanical materialism or of simple incoherence. In contrast to these approaches, this lecture seeks to outline an interpretation of Marxism that is able to point beyond the impasse both of modern moral philosophy and of much of modern radical theory towards an ethically grounded criticism of, and alternative to, capitalism. Blackledge argues that, understood thus, Marxism provides indispensible resources for contemporary political theory (and practice).

Save the NHS - Public Meeting

Dr John Lister will be speaking at a meeting organised by Leeds Hospital Alert and Leeds Keep our Health Service Public on Thursday 21 June 2012 from 7pm.


The meeting will take place at Holy Trinity Church Boar Lane, Leeds, LS1 6HW.


Please come and join in the discussion on how we can save the NHS from the attacks of the privateers.


For further information e-mail: leedshospitalalert@org.uk


Please also find below a link to the petition to Save Airedale Hospital Laundry Service.  This in-house service is under threat, and the petition asks the management of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust to do everything possible to keep the laundry in-house and its 40+ staff in work. 


Please also sign the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-airedale-hospital-laundry-service


Please support this petition, sponsored by UNISON, GMB and Keighley TUC, and distribute it to friends, family and colleagues, asking them to also sign.

Eclectica - A gig and social night in support of Positive Action for Refuges and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS)

After the Leeds Against the Cuts meeting at 6PM on Thursday 14 June 2012 at Leeds TUC Centre. Please consider attending the gig and social night in support of Positive Action for Refuges and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS) below.

TUFO PAFRAS PRESENTS

ECLECTICA

A line-up of local music spanning jungle, reggae, tubas, handlebar moustaches, indie, and psychedelic blues.

THURSDAY 14 JUNE 2012, WHARF CHAMBERS, WHARF ST OFF KIRKGATE, LEEDS. 6PM-11PM. £4 IN.

WITH:

LA LA & tHE BOO YA

CONTROL THE FULLNESS   KOG MOORCROFT

VEGETARIAN CURRY AND PIES!  PRIZES! CHEAP DRINKS!

ALL MONEY TO POSITIVE ACTION FOR REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS (PAFRAS): HELPING DESITITUTE ASYLUM SEEKERS WITH FOOD AND SUPPORT IN WEST YORKSHIRE



Pos­i­tive Action for Refuges and Asy­lum Seek­ers (PAFRAS) works with asy­lum seek­ers, refugees and local com­mu­ni­ties in Leeds and the sur­round­ing area. (Regd charity 1120950)

Leeds Against the Cuts Public Meeting

The next meeting  of Leeds Against the Cuts will be at Leeds TUC Centre, 88 North Street, LS2 7PN on Thursday 14 June 2012 starting at 6pm.


Please come along to share ideas about how we can fight against the coalitions cuts in Leeds.

Public Meeting this Thursday

The next meeting of Leeds Against the Cuts is this Thursday 17th May at 6 pm @ Leeds TUC, 88 North Street, Leeds LS2 7PN.

We will be discussing Mayday, the pension strikes and what we can do next in Leeds as an anti-cuts group linked to the unions and TUC.

So please come along and let's put our heads together on how to make the ConDems' summer a hot one!

M10 tomorrow, There's a March as well!

Tomorrow please assemble at 11:30 to March from outside Leeds Metropolitan University Library to Millennium Square for the Rally

M10 Leeds Strike Day Rally

The Leeds Strike Day Rally in support of the M10 industrial action by PCS, UNITE and UCU will take place at millenium square tomorrow at 12:00 noon.

Bring your banners and show your support and say to the government 68 is too late.

Leeds Community Organising Launch

For More information visit www.leedscommunityorganising.org.uk or e-mail leedscommunityorg@gmail.com

Leeds May Day March Saturday 05 May 2012

May Day March & Rally 2012


Defend international workers day.......defend workers rights


Stop the Tory Cuts.....Defend the NHS.....Fight Austerity Now.....


Join the May Day March Saturday May 5th. Assemble 11.30 am at Victoria Gardens (outside Leeds Art Gallery). Speakers include John McDonnell MP (t.b.c)