Bangor against cuts

It has been an eventful couple of weeks for Wrexham Socialists’.

Staff in the University and Colleges Union (UCU) at Yale College and Glyndwr University were on strike over attacks on pay and pensions last week, on Thursday 24th March, and members of Wrexham Socialist Party headed down to the picket lines to show our solidarity. The pickets were angry at the deep cuts to education in Wales being undertaken by a Labour/Plaid coalition, which continues to disguise itself as against cuts whilst implementing them at Assembly and council level, and the pickets were in full support of our calls for coordinated strike action and a 24-hour public sector General Strike.

At Yale’s technical campus, there was also great anger amongst the dozen or so pickets at the cuts to EMA in Wales, with the abolition of the £10 and £20 bands, which has hit some of the poorest students the hardest, and the failure of the other unions in the college to coordinate strike action. A number of pickets expressed thanks for our solidarity, bought papers, donated to our fighting fund, and wished us well for London on the Saturday.

On the following Saturday, Wrexham Socialists’ headed down to London for the March for the Alternative, alongside around 700,000 trade unionists, workers, students, pensioners and service users. This was the largest trade union demonstration in generations and evidence of the deep anger of working class people expected to pay for the crisis in capitalism and the bankers’ bail-out with our jobs, homes and services. Much has been written on London elsewhere, so all we will say is that it was a fantastic day and that you can find a Socialist Party report here.

Below is a video and a few more pictures from the day.

Today, Wrexham Socialists’ headed over to the fine city of Bangor, Gwynedd, where a march and rally against the cuts was taking place. The demo attracted around two hundred trade unionists, workers and service users, and was made lively by the presence of an excellent drumming band, which led us through the streets of Bangor. The response from the public was excellent, with many stopping to applaud the march and dance to the drums, and to ask for our leaflets and papers.

Following the march, we heard from a number of speakers. Unfortunately, we were prevented from speaking at the rally on the transparent grounds that it was not a ‘party political’ event – which was amusing and frustrating in equal measure, as the first speaker was Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd! Llwyd skirted around the issue of coordinated strike action, instead calling for ‘local demonstrations’, and made no mention of the fact that here in Wales it is Plaid Cymru, in coalition with Labour in the Assembly, and in local authorities throughout Wales, including Gwynedd and Wrexham, which is refusing to fight the cuts, telling working class people that while they nominally disagree, at least with the pace of cuts, that we will nonetheless still have to pay with our jobs, and is cravenly slashing education, health and public services.

Rather than the reason given, it is obvious that we were prevented from speaking precisely because the Plaid and Labour contingent present at the rally are fully aware of the contradiction of their position. Unfortunately, this meant that nobody was able to speak out on the need to fight every single cut, regardless of which party is making them, and the need for demonstrations and marches to be backed up by coordinated strike action across both the public and private sectors.

Nonetheless, this was a successful and lively demo with a good turnout for Bangor. Wrexham Socialists’ received an excellent response from the public, and the call from the Shop Stewards Network on leaflets and flyers for coordinated strike action was received with comments of ‘it’s about bloody time we all went on strike together!’.

Diolch, Bangor!

Many thanks to:

Stillshooter for the Bangor pictures

Mossy for the London pictures