Defend against the EDL on 4th February!

If you didn't know already, the racist and fascist English Defence League is planning to hold a rally in Leicester on 4th February.  The arrival of the EDL in any town represents a very real threat to those they are against - particularly muslims, black and asian people and anyone seen as 'foreign', but also trade unionists and anyone remotely associated with 'the left'.

There will undoubtedly be calls from the 'proper authorities' to 'stay in and leave it to the professionals', i.e. the police. This we will not do.  There will also be calls from certain elements for a static rally that will be confined by a police kettle.  This is simply not good enough.

In response, LSG calls on everyone to be out the 4th Feb, supporting those whose communities will be under the most direct threat from the EDL.  That means standing together with those under threat and helping to defend our streets.


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For those who are learning English

We realise that many people whose first language is not English may so far be unaware of the EDL's visit.  We are also aware that those people will face a direct threat from the EDL's presence here, so any knowledge that enables them to decide what they want to do on the day is essential. With this in mind, please feel free to pass on, copy or use as an ESOL teaching material the following text (which just happens to be at Entry Level 3 ESOL).

The fascist English Defence League (EDL) plans to return to Leicester on Saturday 4 February 2012. They have told Leicester City Council that they want to have a march and rally in the city. The police can ask the Home Secretary to stop the march from happening but the EDL can still have an unmoving protest.

The EDL last came to Leicester in October 2010. They weren't allowed to have a march but they had an unmoving protest. The police tried to keep them in one place but the EDL supporters broke through the lines of police and tried to get into Highfields. Hundreds of people in Highfields came out onto the streets to protect their area and the EDL were not able to get into Highfields.

Although they couldn't get into Highfields, they were able to attack shops and restaurants selling halal food in and near the city centre.

At the same time anti-EDL protesters were in the city centre but they were kept in one place by the police and couldn't help to defend the shops that were being attacked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxdTEVzzr_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3ZAWQwF2GI&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBu6Ysjcvc8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRXeAqIXcYQ&feature=related

Reminder - rank and file meeting Thursday night

Well, you don't need to have the foresight of Nostredamus to see the predictability of this:

"The UNISON Local Government Service Group Executive has reputedly voted by 24 votes to 10 to endorse the proposed Agreement, the Higher Education Service Group Executive voting likewise by 8 votes to 5. This would appear to mean that UNISON is accepting the agreement which UNITE rejected yesterday.

Separately the Health Service Group Executive voted to ballot members on the offer to them, and will meet next week to agree their recommendation to members in that ballot."

And we hate to say 'we told you so'... but this sort of spinelessness is exactly why more than ever we need to be building strong rank and file organisation in our localities, workplaces and industries.  So let's get to it then!  See you at Thursday's meeting:

Thursday 12 January

7.30pm

Leicester Secular Hall

75 Humberstone Gate

Click here for map

Education round up 7/1/12

First post of the new year comes not from LSG but from Comrade Choccy on Libcom who makes an insightful contribution on the NUT and NASUWT's rejection of the government's latest pay offer.  The original article with comments can be found HERE

Education round up 7/1/12

NUT and NASUWT reject pension offer. Gove talks shite about academies. Sutton council wants to ditch class size limit.

Pension offer
So yesterday, NUT and NASUWT, the two largest teaching unions with a combined membership of about half a million, rejected the governments latest pay offer. They join PCS and Unite in doing so. ATL, a smaller teaching union and NAHT, headteacher union had accepted the offer before Christmas.

While this keeps open the possibility of further one-day strikes as the existing pension strike ballots allow, it goes without saying that we shouldn't be relying on these unions to fight for our pensions. The divide and rule amongst the unions has been partially effective, given some have caved. I'm personally sick of waiting for the go-ahead from unions, this pissing around is just drawing it all out, waiting for them to sell us out. I've not heard much rank and file chatter amongst teachers and other education workers outside of our own little circles, but fuck knows we need it!

Gove talks shite about academies
No surprise here, given this man is intent on destroying national agreements in schools and consistently sticking the boot in to education workers, despite having never been a teacher himself.

This week saw Gove talk the single biggest pile of shite he has done in his time in office:

""The same ideologues who are happy with failure - the enemies of promise - also say you can't get the same results in the inner cities as the leafy suburbs so it's wrong to stigmatise these schools...Let's be clear what these people mean. Let's hold their prejudices up to the light. What are they saying?
If you're poor, if you're Turkish, if you're Somali, then we don't expect you to succeed. You will always be second class and it's no surprise your schools are second class.

This is a disgusting comment. He has never taught turkish kids, I have. He has never taught somali kids, I have. He's probably never MET a 'poor kid' He can get to fuck. I can tell you in my last academy, the bottom sets, were filled almost exclusively with turkish and african-parent kids. The tops sets were mostly white middle class. My academy was failing these pupils, and it was disgusting. I plan to write a longer post about the total lack of evidence that setting benefits pupils (except for the top set, surprise surprise).

Here's why I despise academies:
- they are and always have been, a way of chipping away at public eduction and handing it to private firms to make a profit, when profit's involved, it always comes first, not people, not kids, not eduction
- it's an attempt to finally destroy unions, collective bargaining, and any form of nationally organised resistance in schools
- as bad as the ethos is in many state schools, sponsors are tsaking the piss in academies - indoctrinating kids with business jargon while training them for the workplace fodder conveyor belt, all the while getting some PR for whatever firm has been gracious enough to attach their name to a school
- they want to wreck national pay agreements. Academies are free to set their own pay and conditions, for all workers and all grades
- communities are being sold the notion of academies without information and a non-existent consultation. Where they have opposed it, the government now wants to FORCE it through. Yay democracy!
- last but not least, academies have no demonstrable positive effect on just about any measure, not even 'academic attainment', if that's your bag.

The academy fight is being stepped up. Gove is really calling us out and pissing all over education workers. I hope we don't let this clueless man bully us.

Massive classes save money
Really? Whoulda thought?
Why don't we just never clean schools? That would save money.
Why don't we just serve gruel instead of actual food in the canteens? That would save money.
Why not just have everything REALLY FUCKING SHIT? That would save money.

A genius in Sutton council, their chief executive Niall Bolger, "said his council had spent £7m on accommodating the extra pupils its schools would admit in September." He ereckons he coulda saved that money by just dumping a few more kids in each class in infant school - from 30 to 32.

This all despite the fact that class size clearly matters, and even more so in the early years of education. All the while private schools have much smaller classes, and, gasp, better results.

I interpret his remark to mean 'we don't give a shit about working class kids' eduction, let's dump them in massive classes as they're not really worth giving a shit about. PS I send my own kids to private school'.

Sure why not just do away with education altogether and bring back workhouse while we're at it? There's no fucking jobs anyway so why bother starting a proper education?