TMP Online is away for August
Like the couple below, you may have noticed that TMP Online has fallen off the radar…
Readers have no fear! Though we are away for August, we will return with wit, commentary and news of a lefty political nature in September.
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VICTORY: Honduran Workers Get Nike to “Just Pay it”
By Jack Mahoney
Ex-workers demand Nike pay them owed dues at a rally in Honduras, June 12, 2010.
UPDATE: New York Times story on the victory
The CGT union in Honduras announced that it reached an agreement with Nike on behalf of the 1,800 former workers who sewed Nike college apparel at the factories Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex. One year and six months after the factories closed and failed to pay $2.5 million in severance to the workers, and after a United Students against Sweatshops (USAS) campaign severed Nike contracts with universities for the first time ever, workers and USAS forced Nike to agree to everything they had been demanding. Ex-workers demand Nike pay them what they’re owed at a rally in Honduras, June 12, 2010.
Only 35 schools out of 2000 take up Gove’s school bribe?
Results of a survey passed to the Anti Academy Alliance suggest that only 35 schools have decided to enter in to a Faustian pact with Michael Gove by taking up his offer of a fast track to academy status.
If this is true, it is a welcome set-back to the Con Dem government’s plans to dismantle locally supported comprehensive state education and create in its place a socially divisive hierarchy of academy, “free” and second-class schools, with its upper tiers accountable only to Michael Gove himself.
Ian Tomlinson Verdict: The CPS & The DPP are a joke
Today’s decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions not to bring any criminal charges over the death of Ian Tomlinson follows a line of previous decisions when police conduct has resulted in death or serious injury and no charges were brought.
Southwark Unites Against the Emergency Budget – 19/07/10 @ 7pm
Southwark Trade Union Council presents: Southwark Unites against the Emergency Budget at the Salvation Army Community Church Hall, 1 Princess Street, London SE1 6HH on Monday 19th July 2010 at 7pm.
The Coalition Government have declared war against working people and the poor. Despite attempts to dress up the budget as “progressive”, independent economists have given it a damning verdict.
Academies: My school blazer costs £90
By Joshua Rooney
Gordon Brown and Ed Balls at the City of London Academy
From 2004 to 2008, I attended the City of London Academy in Southwark, one of four Academies sponsored by the Corporation of London; the others are in Camden, Islington, and Hackney. The main subject focus of the school was therefore Business studies, regardless of the fact that it was neither a required curriculum subject nor students’ desire to actually study business, and students were also required to take the mandatory Business GCSE, again, regardless of student needs or wants.
In addition to the educational favouritism, the school also had a token amount of students who actually lived in the City, and they were provided with minibuses to ferry them to and from school every day, whilst non City students had to take public transport – even when it was quite late at night after clubs and detentions, there was no consideration for the younger students who were made to travel on buses through rough areas as late as 9PM. Uniforms were also expensive, up to £90 for a blazer, and a requirement for leather shoes, once again, not a problem for the City kids, but a large investment for the families of students in poorer areas which made up about 95% of the school population, including myself.
FREE PATRICK OKOROAFOR
At The Multicultural Politic, we applaud all those who were involved in the campaign to save Sakine Mohammadi Ashtani, a 43 year old woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery today, as it appears that the Iranian Government has responded to the international outcry by reviewing her death sentence. Her life has been saved by all those who participated whether on Twitter or old fashioned petitions and letter writing, you are all heroes. We now publish here an Amnesty International appeal for a Nigerian prisoner, Patrick Okoroafor may his campaign also receive similar attention.
Patrick Obinna Okoroafor was 14 when he was arrested in 1995 and has now been in prison for 15 years – half of his lifetime.
Coalition Government cuts homes for workers
From A Thousand Cuts
The Homes and Communities Agency has got back to me with figures on the affordable housing budget cuts.
You may recall that government funding cuts have left a shortfall in the agency’s budget. As a result, there will be cutbacks in affordable housing programmes across the country – with 4,500 affordable homes at risk of cancellation.
The Rise of European Fascism & Roma Persecution
At The Multicultural Politic, we support campaigns against discrimination everywhere and anywhere in the world. Across Europe and especially in Hungary and Slovakia, the global recession has strengthened far-right parties and fascist groups. The Gypsy and Roma people have been at the front line of persecution and discrimination especially by these groups in Eastern Europe.
by Ulrike Schmidt & Justin Baidoo
Magyar Garda - The Fascist "Hungarian Guard"
The EDL and The Islamist Far-Right
From The Commune
Last month the English Defence League announced plans to march in Tower Hamlets, East London, in protest at an Islamist conference planned for June 20th at the Troxy centre. The conference was planned by groups tied to Islamic Forum Europe, among the major Islamist groups in the area.
Anti-racists planned to demonstrate against the EDL: but the SWP-run Unite Against Fascism and its front group United East End insisted this should be on the basis of uncritical support for — and collaboration with — the conference organisers. This meant whitewashing the worst religious fundamentalists and supporting their right to represent the Bengali community in the borough.
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