UK UK Newswire Archive
Policing of 'noborder camp' in Brussels violates basic civil rights
01-10-2010 19:27
The Brussels noborder camp has been met with high levels of police action.CUTZ: this week in Bristol and beyond ...
01-10-2010 19:26
So, there's nothing happening 'til the Comprehensive Spending Review you say?(Most links deleted to avoid spambots)
Dedicated to Will. He'd know what this means. Shine on.
STRIKE
50 Unison members in leisure centres, country parks and car parking services were out on strike last weekend. Swindon Borough Council have withdrawn extra pay for staff working unsociable hours. This works out at between seven and 14 per cent of the workers' wages.
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/8414985.Strike_...ntre/
Swindon Unison: unisonswindon@swindon.gov.uk
RUBBERSTAMP
Bristol City councillors have now rubberstamped their plan to cut redundancy payments and pay protection for any redeployed staff (reported last week) as they gear up to make 1,000 staff redundant. The GMB says they will ballot for industrial action on the issue.
The T&G (Unite) and Unison both objected to the plans but seem to be keeping their powder dry on this one. Perhaps they're looking toward even bigger challenges ahead such as the inevitable ConDem assault on local government pensions?
The decision was taken by the council's Human Resources Committee, the star chamber that will be directly responsible for staffing cuts. Its Chair is Lib Dem Steve Comer who also sits on the National Executive of the defiantly left wing PCS union. Quite how he reconciles his two roles is anybody's guess. Also on the committee is Labour's Sean Beynon who owes his seat on the council directly to money and campaigning from the membership of the T&G (Unite). The rest of the committee consists of Tory accountant Geoff Gollop, drippy liberal Fi Hance - who works for drippy Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams - and Lib Dem cabinet member, Mark Wright, a confused working class Tory. Their addresses are online.
BUDGET
Bristol City Council's Cabinet say they are already £2.2 million overspent on this year's budget. It was £5.5m but it has been reduced largely through £3.3m worth of staff cuts branded as "vacancy management". This means low-paid, low-status job vacancies are left unfilled and the staff that remain are worked like dogs by the management to get the work done. Trade unions have yet to find a response to this widespread management tactic.
NHS
The University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust that runs the BRI is cutting costs by about £18 million this year. That's around five per cent of their budget. Similar cuts are expected at the North Bristol NHS Trust responsible for the Frenchay and Southmead Hospitals. A cost-cutting merger of the trusts is also on the cards in the next few years. Health spending is supposed to be ringfenced from cuts.
The Bristol Evening Post continues to be the local market leader for human interest stories about public service cuts and their effect on the wider public. War veteran Bernard Warren has dementia and terminal cancer and has been assessed by the local NHS as "not being ill enough" for his care to be fully funded under the Continuing Care scheme. Latest news is that he has fallen and broken a hip a day after NHS assessors claimed his risk of falling was too low for him to receive full healthcare funding. NHS Bristol “are sorry to learn of Mr Warren's fall.”
SCHOOLS
Bristol City Council have gone very quiet about the £12m earmarked in March 2009 to refurbish Millpond and Whitehall primary schools. Have these projects been cut?
Buddies, a co-operative providing after-school care at Air Ballloon School in St George has been suddenly shut down due to “financial difficulties”. "[Buddies] risked the school itself getting into financial difficulties,” said the headteacher. No plans have been announced to replace the service.
Welcome to 'Silcon Gorge' the creative industries hub of the UK: this year's Bristol Schools Technology Grant has been slashed by £500,000.
More education cuts are coming soon in Bristol. "Detailed budget plans will be announced in the next few weeks," promises schools boss Annie Hudson.
DEFENCE
Trade Unions are warning that thousands of defence jobs in the Bristol region are at risk as the government embarks on its slash and burn-style defence review. Around 13,000 workers are employed in defence-related jobs in the area and two major aircraft programmes – the A330 refuelling plane and the A400M military transport plane made by Airbus at Filton and Rolls Royce at Patchway - may be targeted.
HOUSING
Bristol City Council will be building just 12 council homes in Lawrence Weston not the 76 homes across a dozen sites promised by the council when the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) awarded the city a £5.3 million grant last year . The council has instead been given £775,690 by the HCA and will need to sell 40 existing empty homes to match fund the grant. There are currently about 18,000 people on Bristol's housing waiting list.
TRANSPORT
Bristol's local transport budget has been being cut by £1.5m
PLACE?
Resturanteur, Mike Bennett, the city council's new 'Director of Place', employed to ‘enhance Bristol’s sense of place’ for £72k a year, has announced that the city needs to promote its quality restaurants better and build some bandstands to attract jobs, money and investment. This view is unlikely to be shared by most mainstream economists.
Thursday found Bennett the subject of a brown-nosing spread in the Bristol Evening Post. Oddly, this highly-paid senior local government officer - who "doesn't do it for the money" - was interviewed in the middle of the day on-site at one of his businesses. Are we paying him to run his business? Or does he have an unusually flexible flexitime arrangement?
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/GIVING-BRISTOL-PRID....html
"TO ME, THINGS ARE WORSE WHEN YOU LIVE ALONE. AT TIMES YOU WISH YOU COULD END IT ALL."
More on the Bristol Older People's Forum report - from last week - that found two-thirds of the residents of sheltered housing think the quality of their lives is worse since their resident wardens were cut to save money.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Pensioners-life-wor....html
GAG!
Bristol City Council brings in rules trying to gag staff who speak out on the internet from today despite serious concerns from unions and an independent barrister that their actions may be in breach of the Human Rights Act.
SOUTH GLOUCESTERHIRE
South Gloucestershire Council are cutting 33 per cent of their senior managers in an effort to save £2.2 million a year. Between 25 and 30 positions should go in the shake-up. They are also cutting 317 posts in schools – 10 per cent all of non-teaching jobs – to save a further £12 million.
The Conservative-run council has also decided to close its eight old peoples' homes and is abandoning plans to build two new homes. Instead it will spend money leasing the land to a private company to do it.
FoI
Bristol City Council have failed to comply with a Freedom of Information request for performance stats on their controversial and under-fire call centre at Whitchurch. However City Councillor and Cabinet Member Jon Rogers has published some limited stats on Bristol Indymedia.
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/693578?&conden...49831
COCK-UP
The latest Bristol City Council cock-up will cost taxpayers at least £30,000. Avon Coroner, Paul Forrest, who was sacked earlier this year, is now being reinstated because the council failed to follow correct procedures when they sacked him. Once reinstated, Forrest will receive £30k in back pay and be suspended - again - on his full pay of £120k a year. Bristol City Council spends £3m a year on Human Resources 'expertise'.
TOURISM
Much of Weston-super-Mare's tourist industry is to be handed over to a private contractor to save cash from council budgets. North Somerset Council will hand over the running of The Playhouse Theatre, The Winter Gardens and the town's Tourist Information Service to contractor Parkwood Leisure.
THICK THESPIAN
Lib Dem thick thesp, Simon Cook - Bristol museums boss - has instructed everyone to stop moaning about the £72k he wasted on a set of ordinary-looking museum logos from a Manchester design agency because it's upsetting his museum staff. Not as upset as they are about losing their jobs or being downgraded to fill the multi-million pound funding gap his stupid new Museum of Bristol nobody wanted has created, mind.
CHARGES
Bath and North East Somerset Council are imposing a charge of 3% on council tax payments, planning applications and parking permits when a credit card is used. Nice little earner!
BUSINESS
Maskeys the bristol furniture company is to shut down with the loss of almost 90 jobs.
Harvey Nichols at Cabot Circus have announced staff redundancies just days after claiming to have had "double-digit sales growth".
130 workers at Orange in Bristol are to lose their jobs as a result of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile
80 staff working at CPC Packaging in Fishponds have been sent home by administrators appointed six weeks ago.
REDUNDANCY
The GMB claims Sheffield City Council has sent official ‘redundancy notices’ to 8,500 of its staff.
HOUSE PRICE JOY
Wages are stagnant, people are lsoing their jobs but it's alright because house prices are up 9% in Bristol says the Nationwide. That means the huge amount of people who can't get housing in the city are even worse off than a year ago.
September Labour Market profile for Bristol:
http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/1/2038431894/report.pdf
Being made redundant? Problems at work? Being cut? Contact BRISTOL IWW where brothers are doing it for themselves. bristoliww@riseup.net or Tel: 07506 592180
Got any news about cuts in Bristol, Bath or beyond? Send stories, rants, gossip and informed speculation to Cutz, the brashest and best cuts news in the west: bristol_citizens@yahoo.co.uk
SUBSCRIBE by email and get all the news with all the links. Email bristol_citizens@yahoo.co.uk
CPC Direct Action Bloc Meeting Point for Sundays Protests.
01-10-2010 18:44
I suppose we should start with the shite news, the squatted convergence space is looking very unlikely as police arrested those involved with taking the space earlier this week and confiscated tools. We are trying to co-ordinate with the few Brummies that we know to try and open another convergence space before the weekend but at this moment no guarantees.Anyone who can offer floors to activists on the day who stay around for the evening activities please let us know. I know this is quite annoying but we simply don’t have the numbers in Brum beforehand to secure the space, if anyone wants to get down to Brum before and open a space let us know and we will put it on the site.
Germany "One protester killed" - live stream now!!!!
01-10-2010 18:33
http://www.fluegel.tv/ Over 400 protesters were hurt. A speaker on the demo just anounced: "one protester died in hospital, one is in severe condition".
The protest is directed against a gigantic underground rail station, for which parts of the inner city of Stuttgart have to be pulled down. The costly project is supported by the conservative party and the socialdemocrats.
The significance of the protest is, that is based on ordinary people, without links to trade unions and the left.
The movement reminds many of the beginning of the revolution in East-Germany in 1989.
Watch dramatic events unfold live.
TAKE ACTION: Ban BAE from campus this term!
01-10-2010 16:51
The Persecution of Hoder
01-10-2010 16:48
Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, has been sentenced in Iran to 19.5 years for being an 'anti-revolutionary blogger'.Job vacancies at Ecoworks
01-10-2010 11:24
Ecoworks delivers community environmental projects in Nottingham, particularly targeting those experiencing disadvantage. We have been providing environmental, educational, and health promoting activities from our community allotment gardens in St Ann's (the oldest and largest site of its kind in England), for 18 years.
We are currently recruiting for two positions, Finance and Admin Co-ordinator and Food Projects Co-ordinator.
Finance and Administration Co-ordinator
We are seeking an exceptional finance and administration co-ordinator to provide support to our diverse range of community projects. You will be responsible for managing Ecoworks' financial systems, and providing financial reports. You will support staff and management committee to carry out their respective roles, ensuring that office systems provide a strong backbone to our practical, hands-on community activities, and will manage our building and facilities. You will supervise volunteers and potentially an administrative assistant.
You will be an experienced and very well organised administrator, with knowledge of a range of computer programs. You will have excellent interpersonal skills and strong financial management skills.
Deadline for applications: 9.30am on Thursday 21st October.
Food Projects Co-ordinator
We are seeking an exceptional Project Co-ordinator with a demonstrated interest in healthy, sustainable food and communities. You will take responsibility for managing our food social enterprise projects and the staff that deliver these, alongside some educational projects with food as their main focus. As a member of Ecoworks' Management Team, you will also take an active role in the strategic and operational management of Ecoworks, and the development and management of some projects that may not have food as the primary focus, as needed. You will research and develop new projects, develop partnerships and secure funding in order to safeguard existing and develop new projects.
Closing Date for Applications: Tuesday 26th October
To find out more information, as well as links to download application forms, job descriptions and person specs please go to http://www.ecoworks.org.uk/get-involved/jobs-opportunities/
EdF documents show new nuclear safety risk
01-10-2010 09:22
Leaked documents passed on to a French campaign group show that the design and mechanics of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) could lead to a Chernobyl-type accident.The EPR is the reactor design proposed by EdF at Hinkley Point. The news breaks just as the second stage of the EdF consultation is about to close (on Monday).
The documents reveal that a combination of eighty-nine penetrations to the reactor pressure vessel and the type of metal used could produce leaks in the crucial component and lead to a devastating nuclear accident.
The revelations will cause more headaches for EdF. The reactor design has been criticised by UK, US, French and Finnish safety regulators over the complex control and instrumentation system which if impaired, could result in the failure of the shut-down system. EdF has also been slammed for its safety failures leading in one case to the contamination of a hundred nuclear workers.
http://www.stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr091127.htm
100 Tricastin EdF workers contaminated, 15 at Saint Alban, another leak at Romans-sur-Iseres (most detailed report):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france....html
As the reactor would use high burn up fuel, the results of a serious accident could lead to the release of eleven times more radioactivity than from a standard Pressurised Water Reactor such as Sizewell B with obvious implications for public health.
http://www.stophinkley.org/NewsPages/news090208Ind.htm
Jim Duffy, Stop Hinkley Coordinator said: "EdF keep repeating their mantra about safety being their priority but actually these documents reveal they are prepared to allow a potentially dangerous reactor to be built. They were criticised two years ago for safety shortcomings that led to a hundred French workers being contaminated, leading to industrial unrest. I'm worried we'll see a repeat of these safety breaches over here."
Police coup thwarted in Ecuador
01-10-2010 06:46
AN ATTEMPTED coup d'etat appears to have been thwarted in Ecuador, after police protests turned into an attempt to displace the centre-leftist President Rafael Correa.Save FTT Jobs at Reading University!
30-09-2010 23:29
Dear AllStaff and students in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at Reading University have launched a website and online petition to oppose compulsory redundancies in their department.
Please help the campaign by signing the petition
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/39385.html and visit the website
http://savefttjobs.webs.com/ You can also join the Facebook group 'Save FTT Jobs'
Dialect - Life, Death and Washing Machines - Living with Dialysis
30-09-2010 23:22
plus the history of Bristol's elite Merchant VenturersDialect Radio is a Bristol (UK) podcast produced by volunteers. Our main activity is our weekly current affairs and arts magazine programme Dialect, which is recorded at our Queen's Square studios and posted for download every week on Friday morning. Want to volunteer? Volunteering Bristol, Royal Oak House, Royal Oak Avenue, Bristol. BS1 4GB Tel: 0117 989 7733. Listen on air: 93.2 FM (BCFM), Sundays at 12 noon. Or listen live on the internet at http://www.bcfm.org.uk/
Life, Death and Washing Machines - Living with Dialysis
not possible to upload to Indymedia
'publish request cancelled' error
listen
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/45896
lo-fi download/listen
http://www.bilderberg-mirror.org.uk/Dialect_03Oct10BIMC.mp3
TIMINGS:
Sally Reay Interview: 00:50
Life, Death and Washing Machines: 08:24
Julian Lee Jones Interview: 16:33
Rebecca Payton/Martin Bartelt Interview: 20:56
Katy Bauer Interview: 30:18
William Buvi Interview: 39:58
Tim Burroughs: 43:22
Jeff Sparks' What's On: 47:55
CREDITS
Producer: Lee Duffield
Studio Engineer: Ryan Hardman
Animal Liberation: How Do We Get There?
30-09-2010 23:07
Words are useless unless they translate into action. We all know what the issues are. We do not need anymore masturbatory debates about welfare v. rights nor do we need to entertain the enemy by debating their insidiousness with them. They are all criminals and they all need to be stopped. If we start with that very simple premise, then we can easily shift the conversation toward one thing and one thing only: HOW?Solidarity Against the EDL in Leicester
30-09-2010 21:24
The EDL are planning to hold a demonstration in Leicester on Sat 9th Oct. We are confident that the people of Leicester will be able to defend our community against this racist provocation. However, we call on antifascists to come to Leicester and show solidarity. The EDL's recent Bradford shindig may have shown just what a joke they are but they are not finished yet. Come to Leicester and make sure the EDL are even more demoralised.
The wheels have really come off the EDL wagon in recent times. Their "big one" in Bradford turned out to be all talk, with only a few hundred turning up and many having to flee from the local youth. The previous softly, softly approach of the police and some sections of the public has hardened against them after their many violent drinking sprees. It seems that Leicestershire police are following this approach, calling for a ban of their march.
Not even the most gullible people believe the EDL's "peaceful protesters" line any more. Leicestershire police say they have had intelligence that the EDL intend to attack a mosque in Leicester before marching into Highfields, one of the city's biggest Muslim communities. We have to be sceptical about "police intelligence", and this is almost certainly some wanker mouthing off on the internet, but it gives you an idea of what some of the EDL want to achieve. It would certainly be amusing to watch the EDL try to invade Highfields but I don't think they would survive.
The other laughable myth that the EDL have invented about themselves is that they aren't racist. The evidence for this is that they have two (yes - two!) Asian members (a racist Sikh and a sectarian Glaswegian) and a handful of black members. The reality is that they are founded on racist ideas about Muslims and, as a result, attract large numbers of racists as well as neo Nazis. In Leicester they think that they will be able to divide and conquer by stirring up tension between Muslims and other Asians. Most Sikhs and Hindus understand that the EDL are their enemies, as shown by the EDL attack on a Hindu temple in Dudley. Leicester has good relations between communities and the EDL will fail yet again.
This is a call out for people in the Leicester area and beyond to come on the 9th and make sure there is an overwhelming presence of people opposed to the EDL. They suffered a big defeat in Bradford, and are almost universally hated, but they are still crawling on. Let's make sure they never come to Leicester again.
EdF documents show new nuclear safety risk
30-09-2010 20:17
Leaked documents passed on to a French campaign group show that the design and mechanics of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) could lead to a Chernobyl-type accident.Germany: "Civil war like events"
30-09-2010 18:56
Hit the Animal Supply - EcoTox Breeders
30-09-2010 18:49
Hit the Animal Supply - EcoTox BreedersRecording sex via spy cameras is getting a rise out of people
30-09-2010 18:17
Op/Ed article on the recent story regarding the spy camera in the college dorm and the uproar it crated when the sex video was sent out on line and the boy involved committed suicide.Germany: eyes blown out by police watercannon
30-09-2010 17:43
Palestine Today 09 30 2010
30-09-2010 17:37
