Cutting medical secretaries causes X-ray backlog

Recent reports have uncovered a massive backlog of thousands of untyped x-ray reports in the Mater Hospital. This gives us a glimpse of what the cuts planned by the Belfast Health Trust management and the Assembly Executive will mean. The backlog was caused by a lack of medical secretaries to process the reports. Ridiculously, the Belfast Trust has threatened to slash 50 more of these workers, while cutting the pay of another 120!

Interview with Tony Mulhearn

Slashing public services: do councillors have 'no choice'?

Campaigns against the Tory/Liberal government's cuts have wide support. But many councillors say that they are, in principle, opposed to cutting public services but have "no choice" but to implement cuts.

From 1983 to 1987 the Liverpool Labour council, led by supporters of Militant (the predecessor of the Socialist Party), refused to make cuts or increase local rates to compensate for Tory cuts. Instead they led a mass movement to win more money from Margaret Thatcher's Tory government.

Bob Severn recently spoke to Tony Mulhearn, who was a councillor and Liverpool District Labour Party's president at the time.

No to job losses at Translink

The announcement that 70 jobs are to be cut at Translink’s bus engineering division is a major attack on the workers involved and the public who rely on a well maintained bus service.

Stop the Cuts Alliance established

Protest - Belfast City Hall 1pm 29 September

At a meeting in Belfast on 16 August, socialist and trade union activists agreed to form the Stop the Cuts Alliance in order to build opposition to the cuts from Westminster and Stormont. It's first decision was to call a protest against cuts at 1pm outside Belfast City Hall on 29 September - as part of the day of action called by the European Trade Union Confederation.

'Lost generation' forced on dole and excluded from university

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned that there is a "risk of a crisis legacy of a lost generation". In the UK young people continue to be the hardest hit by the recession. The ILO figures chime with the analysis of Youth Fight for Jobs, that youth unemployment shows the depth of the economic crisis.

East Belfast: Services under attack

With harsher spending cuts in the pipeline, the Assembly’s current batch of cutbacks are already hitting schools and other educational facilities hard in East Belfast. In July, with construction set to begin, the Education Minister Caitriona Ruane announced that Strandtown Primary School would not be getting the new school building it was promised years ago.

Now in August, Victoria Park primary School has also been told work on its much needed new purpose-built building has been postponed. The fact that these two nearby primary schools have both been denied funding compounds the longstanding neglect of primary education in East Belfast.

Victoria Primary School latest victim of Assembly cuts

East Belfast Socialist Party spokesperson and education worker Tommy Black today attacked Minister Caitriona Ruane after revealing that promised new school buildings in East Belfast will now be scrapped.

The decision by the Minister to scrap plans to build a much needed new building at Victoria primary school is a slap in the face for the local community. Assembly cuts have already led to the closure of Beechfield Primary School, the closure of Ballymacarratt Library, funding cuts to the Playzone facility at Ballymac Community Centre and also the scrapping of new buildings at Strandtown Primary school.

Mass campaign must be built to save the Mid-Ulster

Through its opposition to the removal of accident and emergency services from the Mid-Ulster Hospital, the “Save the Mid” Campaign has exposed the cynical disregard of the Assembly politicians and Northern Health Trust management towards the lives of ordinary people. With the High Dependency Unit now closed and radiography under threat, it’s clear the Trust management aim to run the Mid-Ulster into the ground.