DailyRadical

New Labour, the government that introduced tuition fees and student loans in 1998 and then narrowly passed a bill to introduce top-up fees of £3,200 per year from 2006, have recently launched a “higher education finance review” to look into raising the cap on tuition fees (possibly up to £7000 per year) and examine the way in which universities should be funded.

California Student Organizing Explodes

Yesterday the Spanish Student Union, Sindicato de Estudiantes, called a student general strike involving school and university students. The turnout as massive, with hundreds of thousands coming out to protest against cuts in education and privatisation.

Thousands of students took to the streets in Spain on Wednesday 22nd to protest against plans to privatise university education and also opposing any plans to make workers pay for the capitalist crisis through cuts in education, health and other public services.

Students say “Feck Fees”BR
On October 22nd, in the biggest show of student strength in many years in Ireland, over 15,000 third level students marched through the streets of Dublin. They were united in their opposition to the Budget’s 67% College Registration Fee increase and Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe’s threat to bring back full college fees by September 2009br

Hundreds of thousands of school and university students, together with teachers, professors and parents are mobilising all over Italy against Berlusconi’s attempt to further privatise education. This has led to occupations of schools and universities. The response of the government has been to threaten the use of armed police against the students. All this is achieving is a further radicalisation of the youth… as the workers’ movement also prepares to intervene.

New York Governor Patterson was trying to get the state work force to accept a one-day-per-week furlough. This would have meant a 20% cut in pay! The unions went to court and the furlough plan was stopped. Now, Patterson threatens 10,000 state workers with lay-offs on January 1, 2011. This is on top of many education and service cuts. The Metropolitan Transit Authority is laying off 475 station agents and plans to lay-off 500 subway conductors and bus drivers. Many local governments in NY State are also making deep cuts.

Socialist
Appeal published a supplement containing articles on the wildcat strike
at Lindsey Oil refinery. The pdf file is available for download here (pdf/construction-worker-lindsey-strike.pdf) (1.4mb). The supplement was used to intervene at picket lines around Britain.

The draconian budget rolled out in June is only the first instalment in a five year programme of austerity to be inflicted upon the British people. The Tory-dominated government is telling us that the economy is in a hole. This is true. They are softening us up for drastic cuts in public spending, saying we can’t afford it and (in the words of Thatcher) that there is no alternative. This is a lie.