Workers, trade unionists and socialists are standing as TUSC in the Welsh Parliament elections and council by-elections
Labour, Plaid and the other parties have no idea how to save these jobs.
Only TUSC candidates are calling for Kautex Textron and any other factories threatening job losses to be nationalised to save jobs.
The steel and automative industries will go the way of coal, with a similar devastating effect on our communities, unless Wales takes the socialist road.
Two young men have died at the hands of police in South Wales since 1st January. The killings of Mohamud Mohammed Hassan in Cardiff and Mouayed Bashir in Newport have brought out big crowds to demand justice.
Despite Covid restrictions, hundreds of brave, mainly young people have closed the streets in front of police stations, and led marches through the city centre determined to make their voices heard. They rightly say these terrible injustices deserve as much attention as deaths across the Atlantic.
Fifteen Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests have taken place in South East Wales so far this year. In Cardiff and Newport, the local community is demanding answers.
From the start, the Socialist Party has demanded the immediate suspension of all the officers involved in the deaths. We call for independent inquiries to include representatives of the families, the local community and the trade unions, whose only interest is to secure justice. But we also call for democratic community control of the police, to stop these terrible miscarriages of justice happening in the first place.
In April, the Young Socialists organised a protest in Cardiff to build support for Siyanda Mngaza, jailed for trying to defend herself from a brutal, racist attack. There is also the case of 13-year-old Christopher Kapessa whose death in the River Cynon in 2019 was never properly investigated.
The Socialist Party has played a prominent role speaking at BLM protests and in securing support for Siyanda, Mohamud, Mouayied, and the wider BLM movement from trades councils, trade unions and the Wales Trades Union Congress.
The trade unions are where millions of workers are organised. We call on the trade unions to make their opposition to institutional racism visible by bringing trade union banners out on BLM protests. But also to play their part in fighting to create a new party for workers that has a political programme to end racism and inequality. Socialist Party members are standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) as part of that process.
If you have been fighting for justice in the BLM protests, vote for TUSC on 6 May
Mariam Kamish
TUSC Candidate in the Senedd elections
Promoted by Dave Warren, TUSC Wales secretary, on behalf of TUSC Wales, 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton SA4 3GS
The Socialist Party, as part of Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), recognises the disproportionate way black and Asian people are affected by the pandemic, and within the capitalist system itself.
In recent anti-racist protests, we have seen black and Asian youth fighting the inequality within the system. In workplaces, we are seeing workers coming out to fight for better pay and conditions.
We are now seeing more black and Asian people looking for a real alternative, including in the ballot box, that will improve their lives and livelihoods.
Voting for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the upcoming election is an opportunity to vote against cuts, to send a message that we want an alternative to the current miserable conditions facing ordinary people.
Traditionally, black and Asian people have seen Labour as the party for them. But the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is not a party that represents our interests. It is turning more and more towards big business and the capitalists. One in five Labour MPs are now black or minority ethnic. But that’s not enough. It is the policies that they stand on that matter.
TUSC stands for a decent future for all: an end to low pay and insecure jobs and for more funding for youth services, NHS and schools.
TUSC is based on the working class and it is therefore not surprising that there are a number of black and Asian workers and young people standing as candidates. It is an example of how a real fighting socialist programme can encourage black and Asian people to be involved in the fightback.
Cammilla Mngaza
TUSC candidate for South Wales East
Promoted by Dave Warren, TUSC Wales secretary, on behalf of TUSC Wales, 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton SA4 3GS
During the second wave of the pandemic, care homes were the largest source of multi – infection incidents according to official data, with ‘acute respiratory infection incidents’ in care homes more than doubling from 364 to 749 across the UK in the fortnight to 3rd January.
The Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition stands for a publicly operated and fully funded national care service for residential, nursing and home care.
We also promote the health and safety, well - being and financial remuneration of all staff, who should be directly employed by the public sector service. NHS workers have marched to demand a 15% pay rise in the wake of the pandemic. Workers in social care should receive a similar double digit pay rise. TUSC will fully support trade union action to achieve this.
We value the selfless work of unpaid carers and recognise that an improvement in the integration and funding of professional care as suggested above would alleviate the burden on them and provide the support they need. We believe that if carers are unable to work due to their caring responsibilities, they ought to receive benefits equivalent to the national living wage. As an immediate measure, we support a substantial increase in the level of benefits available to them.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is standing in all five regions in the 2021 Senedd elections, allowing every voter in Wales to vote for a real socialist alternative.
The manifesto below is the minimum basis on which TUSC candidates stand, and our minimum offer to every voter in Wales.
But it is a minimum, not a limit to the issues that candidates will raise and pledge to fight on. Every trade unionist, anti-cuts campaigner, community activist and all those who want to see an alternative to austerity politicians can become a TUSC candidate. But voters should know that any Member of the Senedd elected under the TUSC banner will fight for these manifesto demands.
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Gareth Bromhall is standing as a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate for Castle ward in order to challenge the savage cuts to the city budget that have been carried out by the Labour administration at Swansea council.
Gareth says: "the residents of Castle ward need a socialist voice that will fight for them in the council chamber and fight alongside them in our community".
Gareth Bromhall is a Sandfields resident, a committed trade unionist and community activist.
As a longstanding member of Swansea Socialist Party he has been involved in and led campaigns to defend the NHS and fought against council cuts over the past decade. As a Unite branch officer and secretary of Swansea Trades Union Council he has organised support and solidarity for workers on picket lines across the city.
A graduate of Swansea University Medical School, Gareth is now a key worker supporting vulnerable young people in Swansea.
As a disabled activist, Gareth has been involved in advocacy and support for disabled people, supporting campaigns and giving advice and support on benefits and access to services.
Despite all the allegedly glowing achievements coming out from the Swansea Labour council's propaganda machine, residents in Castle ward and across the city witness on a daily basis the reality of years of cuts, cuts and more cuts.
Over the past five years Labour has obediently implemented over £70 million of Tory cuts, affecting every area of council services, from social services, education, street cleaning, leisure - you name it and its been cut! At the same time council tax payments go up at twice the rate of inflation or more every year.
Castle ward is unfortunately referred to as the "city centre rubbish tip" where fly-tipping scars the landscape. Accumulated street filth constantly litter our residential streets in the Sanfields, Waun Wen, North Hill and Mount Pleasant.
This is a direct consequence of Swansea Labour councils not being prepared to fight the Tory government for the resources needed to employ more council workers and instead, unbelievable, Labour councillors actually appeal to residents to voluntarily clean up their own streets!
Continuing council cuts mean that our young, elderly, and most vulnerable residents are increasingly neglected and all of us see our quality of life deteriorate as council venues, sports facilities, and leisure servies face regular price increases, back-door privatisation, or closure.
With another £55 million of cuts projected over the next four years, the excuses from Labour councillors that "there is nothing we can do" is not acceptable.
If they won't stand up to Tory cuts then they should step aside so that socialist councillors can organise with the trade unions and community campaigners to set a "no-cuts budget" and mobilise to fight the Tory government for the resources we need to run our services.
Labour councillors, MPs and MSs have offered no opposition to the Tories. We need a mass party of our own to put forward a real anti-austerity alternative, and give a voice to workers who have risked their lives, and lost their jobs, homes and loved ones during the pandemic.
Gareth is a Socialist Party member. The Socialist Party is standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. TUSC was set up to enable trade unionists, community campaigners, and socialists to stand together against the pro-austerity establishment parties. It is a beginning - a step towards the kind of party we need to deliver a socialist alternative to austerity.
Promoted by Dave Warren, TUSC Wales secretary, on behalf of TUSC Wales, 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton SA4 3GS
"We gotta fight for the right To Sparkie!" This was the chant that rang out as even more sparks turned up this week at the Bouygues site at Cardiff University where HSO-using NG Baileys are working. Support is growing for decisive action to force Balfour Beatty and NG Baileys to back down with HSO, an attempt to force down wages and skill levels using Electrical Support Operative (ESO) grades instead of fully-trained electricians.
R&F organiser Andrew Wilkes sent a message to likes of Baileys: “Your latest offer from the ESO to the HSO, you just changed a letter! You just want to put labourers on a week’s health safety course and a 6-9 week course to teach them to put containment in. The Cardiff Sparks say No to ESO!”
Andrew also questioned how a site sponsored by the Welsh government was using companies that are so anti-union that they forced workers to remove Unite face masks.
Andrew is standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the Welsh Senedd elections.
The Welsh government claims to be operating an ethical employment policy with contractors, but NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Still construction contracts are being signed with companies that are:
We need workers’ representatives elected to the Senedd who stand up for workers to pressurise the government to implement its policy.
For too long our unions have handed money and support over to Welsh Labour and received very little in return.
Every public sector contract signed in Wales must only be made to an approved contractor who respects national agreements and does not seek to undermine them with ‘training’ schemes like ESO and HSO.
The contractor must also be held responsible for the practices of the sub-contractors who work for them.
And we need socialists in the Senedd who will fight for nationalisation of the big construction giants and a national construction plan that guarantees wage structures and conditions - vote TUSC on 6 May.
For previous and ongoing coverage of this campaign across Wales, see https://www.socialistpartywales.org.uk/
The Stonewall Cymru hustings was unfortunately a missed opportunity for LGBT+ people to really hold candidates to account. It was very stage managed with no questions taken and all chat functions on Zoom disabled. Stonewall Cymru also refused the appeal by the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Wales to include a candidate in the panel, despite TUSC standing in every region in Wales and supporting the demands of the Stonewall Cymru LGBT manifesto.
Stonewall Cymru’s manifesto contained good and important demands that TUSC Wales would fight for. We would have liked the opportunity to explain how we would achieve it and to put to the other candidates, how do they propose to get the funding to meet Stonewall Cymru’s demands and improve society for LGBT+ people? Will they lead a fight in the Welsh Parliament to demand extra funding from Westminster, like TUSC Wales are calling for? Or would they pay for LGBT+ services by making budget cuts elsewhere - in which case aren’t they just “robbing Peter to pay RuPaul”?
The Tory candidate in his opening remarks claimed that trans rights competed and conflicted with other people’s rights. Unfortunately this was not challenged by the other candidates. TUSC regrets that we were not given the opportunity, which we would have confidently taken, to explain that trans rights do not fundamentally conflict with anyone else’s, that any conflict can be democratically resolved and overcome with a united fight for services. The capitalist class would like nothing less than for us to be divided and argue there is a limited pool of rights or services for us to ration out. TUSC stands for a united working class struggle against all forms of oppression, for LGBT+ liberation, and a socialist world.
The question about what candidates were doing to address discrimination in their own parties had the potential to be interesting. But without accountability from the floor, it was an exercise in self-congratulation removed from the reality of LGBT+ people leaving these parties in protest at the mishandling and tolerance of homophobia and transphobia from senior figures.
Come to the launch of the TUSC Wales election campaign
An opportunity to hear from the candidates, ask questions, or get involved.
Thursday April 8th at 7.30pm
Remotely via Zoom - meeting ID: 839 9844 5107
Remind me: Facebook event, Google Calendar
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| Photo: Sarah Sachs-Eldridge |
TUSC Wales candidates applaud the Stonewall Cymru LGBT manifesto launched 29th March. Everyone should support, at a minimum, these important demands.
But achieving these policies requires a fight for the resources we need in society. We need an end to austerity budgets carried out at the behest of big business. TUSC candidates reject the idea that Senedd members and councillors have got no choice but to pass on cuts demanded by the Tory government in Westminster.
Workers, socialists, and trade unionists are standing together in the Welsh Parliament elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). We would lead a fight for the Welsh government to demand the funding needed for services, including LGBT+ services.
Our candidates stand for a mass council house building program, rent controls, and an end to evictions. In addition to targeted measures, this would help address LGBT+ homelessness and make it easier for people to leave homophobic and transphobic homes and locations.
We will reverse cuts to public transport and take public transport into public ownership, so that LGBT+ people aren't isolated, particularly in rural communities.
Rising LGBT+ hate crime in Wales must be combated with a united working class struggle against all forms of oppression, for LGBT+ liberation, and a socialist world.
Socialist Party Wales candidates standing for TUSC say "yes" to self-ID for trans people.
TUSC would reverse cuts to the NHS and increase funding and staffing with a 15% pay rise for all NHS staff. We need NHS investment in general but also specifically in order to offer trans and non-binary people additional gender affirming services not currently available in Wales, such as facial feminisation surgery and permanent facial hair removal options for those who want it.
The belated Welsh Gender Identity Clinic is doing great work, but needs urgent support to bring down the 30 month waiting time. We also need a Welsh NHS gender service for people under the age of 18, in line with international standards, for which no provision currently exists.
LGBT+ workers still face horrendous discrimination and harassment in the workplace, made worse by job insecurity. TUSC Senedd members would fight to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts and back the work of fighting trade unions to challenge discrimination of all kinds in the workplace.
Gareth Bromhall, TUSC candidate for South Wales West region and in the Swansea Castle Ward by-election, said: "TUSC pledges to tackle barriers and support LGBT+ rights and services, including supporting the demands rightfully raised by the Stonewall Cymru LGBT manifesto, and to go further, to demand the resources and socialist changes desperately needed in Welsh society, even when other parties will say 'it can't be done'."
Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist on May 6th and support working class fighters for LGBT+ rights.
Come to the launch of the TUSC Wales election campaign:
Thursday April 8th at 7.30pm
Zoom ID: 839 9844 5107
Promoted by Dave Warren, TUSC Wales secretary, on behalf of TUSC Wales, 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton SA4 3GS
Almost one in three children in Wales live in poverty. Even before the Coronavirus pandemic, the EHRC estimated that UK Government tax and welfare reforms would push a further 50,000 children into poverty.
This has happened on Welsh Labour’s watch. The Welsh Government’s recent Child Poverty Strategy sets out an action plan which boils down to little more than advice, raising awareness of existing inadequate programs, and improving takeup of free school meals for those who are eligible. Keyword: “eligible” - free school meals are mostly restricted to children of parents earning less than £7,400 a year. Shamefully, every Labour Member of the Senedd present voted against widening access.
Advice and awareness is all well and good, but no amount of advice on welfare benefits, the best energy deals, benefits of a smart meter, or begging for a slice of the discretionary assistance fund, will address the root issues: low pay, housing costs, and the shameful way this country treats unemployed people, ill and disabled people, and unpaid carers.
After twenty years of Welsh Labour "managing" capitalism and capitulating to Tory cuts from London, we need a real Socialist strategy for eliminating poverty in Wales.
Workers, socialists, and trade unionists, including Socialist Party Wales, are standing together in the Welsh Parliament elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC candidates believe that the Welsh Parliament should be leading a fight today for the resources we need in society, for universal free school meals, a mass council house building programme, rent controls, pay rises, and more.
Promoted by Dave Warren, TUSC Wales secretary, on behalf of TUSC Wales, 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton SA4 3GS
Ross Saunders, who attended the picketline in Merthyr Tydfil, pictured, reported, "RPE Engineers are striking against changes to grading management are trying to impose. A resounding 86% of members voted in favour of strike action on a colossal 94% turnout which smashed throught the thresholds imposed by the Tory anti-union laws. RPE workers do important work making changes to the network to connect large-scale construction projects like the one at Prince Charles Hospital. Amongst the changes management wants to impose are the replacement of automatic pay progression with bonus payments which could be withdrawn at management's discretion. The changes are part of a general assault on the pay and conditions of the whole BT Openreach workforce. 
The CWU is to ballot all 40,000 Openreach workers for action against office closure plans and cuts to entitlements. A phenomenal 7000 workers attended an online meeting organised by the union on the 10th March.
Ross said, "All ordinary working-class people will back the efforts of these strikers to fight off plans by the bosses to cut their conditions as part of a general attempt to cut the share going to workers. Just like the British Gas workers who have taken action against the company's "fire and rehire" plans, this is a business that has boomed during the pandemic. Bosses are as usual trying to boost profits at workers' expense. Both companies should be nationalised under democratic control of the workers. So should the whole communications sector and the utilities too. Now that Labour has been recaptured by big business, workers will have to build a new party to make that programme a reality."
TUSC supporters joined the vigil outside the Senedd on Saturday to remember the life of Sarah Everard and demand an end to violence against women.
Mia Hollsing, TUSC candidate for South Wales Central, spoke to the gathering:
"Sarah Everard left a friend’s house at 9pm on the 3rd of March. She was never seen again. Her body was found in Kent woodland on the 12th of March. A serving police officer in the Met has been arrested suspected of her kidnapping and murder. This shocking crime has rightly left people outraged across the country. No woman should have to fear this kind of violence. No woman should have to be afraid to walk home at night.
"Unfortunately Sarah is not the only woman who has been a
victim of male violence. On average two women a week are killed in the UK by a
partner or ex-partner. Approximately one in every three women will experience
domestic abuse in her lifetime. It is also estimated a further three women a
week kill themselves as a result of experiencing domestic abuse. Despite this
there are more animal shelters in Britain than refuges for women and children.
Every week women are dying as a result of male violence, with the chronic
underfunding of domestic abuse services making the situation worse. Already
before Covid-19, in the year 2018-2019, 512 women were turned away from refuges
in Wales due to lack of space, capacity or resources (Welsh Women's Aid).
"The pandemic has only made the situation worse. Lockdown,
furlough and widespread working from home has meant women having to spend more
time at home alone with their abusers, and homeschooling has meant children
having to spend more time at home in families where abuse is present. At least
90% of VAWDASV (Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence)
services in Wales have reported increased costs related to Covid -19. At the
same time the number of survivors on waiting lists for support in the community
has gone up by 143% (Welsh Women's Aid).
"What happened to Sarah is not an isolated incidence. It
could happen to any woman and it needs to be stopped."
TUSC Wales demands:
* Long-term sustainable funding for all VAWDASV services in
Wales to meet the needs of survivors of domestic abuse and to stop women being
murdered.
* Democratic control of VAWDASV services.
* Refuge spaces for all who need them.
* A council house building building programme to make sure everyone has a safe home of their own, including women who need to move for their safety and to move on from refuge accommodation.
This means that the bosses have a weapon to wield in any kind of dispute. Workers who are known to be outspoken about their conditions or pay can have their hours reduced. This makes attempts to organise workers into trade unions more difficult. Workers who experience bullying or harassment will avoid speaking out or raising grievances because they know that this carries the risk of being labelled a troublemaker and having hours taken off them. One worker reports incidence of racially aggravated bullying and sexual harassment going unreported and then festering and escalating into increasingly unacceptable behaviour.
Precarious employment doesn’t just mean the week-to-week stress of a zero-hour contract, it can also mean the long-term insecurity of a temporary short-term contract. You could be employed on a temporary contract of a year or two years and that means you are always aware that the employer could decide not to renew your contract at the end of t he period. Again, this makes workers wary of getting involved with trade unions, joining other workers in demanding improvements to their pay or conditions, or making complaints about unfair treatment.
The Wales TUC reported a 35% increase in the numbers of employees on zero-hours contracts between 2018 and 2019. In the UK as a whole, 3.6 million people were in insecure employment before the pandemic hit, and that the prevalence of insecure work is particularly bad in Wales and affects black and ethnic minority workers to a greater extent. This perhaps goes some way towards explaining why poorer part of Wales, and BAME workers saw higher instances of Covid-19 as they felt increasing pressure to return to unsafe working conditions in order not to be penalised when contract renewal time roles around.
Part of the precarious work culture is down to organisations and institutions, including the Welsh government itself, who like to cut their payroll costs by outsourcing aspects of the supply chain to private contractor companies. Instead of employing their own security guards or cleaners and having to cover their holiday, sick pay and pension costs, it’s cheaper to pay a contractor like G4S or Mitie. This leave the workers vulnerable and disposable. If a client to the contractor takes a dislike to you or your face doesn’t fit, they can ask for you to be replaced and because the contractors must keep shareholders happy and profits rolling in. They will bend over backwards to keep the client happy whilst hanging their workers out to dry.
This is why we need all public sector jobs to be brought back in house and an end to penny pinching contracting. This would mean that workers at all levels within the organisation would have their conditions and pay protected and they would have access to a HR department in order to raise grievances and stamp out bullying and harassment. We must also demand an end to zero-hours contracts, with the work being organised fairly amongst workers to end the absurd situation where some workers are overworked and some workers do not have enough hours to make ends meet.
TUSC calls on the Welsh government to:-
• Bring security and all other outsourced services back in house.
• Ban exploitative zero hour contracts in all public services. Workers who require flexibility should be given it on their terms - through enhanced rights to access unpaid leave or similar.
• Exclude companies who use zero hours from winning contracts with public bodies.
He will be remembered for the solidarity he and the RMT gave to the Vestas workers and their occupation on the Isle of Wight when other unions walked away from the fight.
Don’t mourn, organise ✊✊✊
By Nick Chaffey
It's disgraceful, when NHS workers have demonstrated up and down the country for a 15% pay rise to begin to recover the 20% they've lost in the last decade, that politicians like Rayner refuse to get behind that campaign, repeating instead the 2.1% figure that other leading Labour MPs like John Ashworth have been touting.
UK billionaires gave increased their wealth by a third during the pandemic, yet Labour won't even back a modest increase to the tax on profits.
Labour are a party of big business. Support TUSC candidates standing in elections this year as a step towards building a new party.
