NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE GREEN PARTY IN THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BRENT

14 Feb 2014

EMERGENCY PUBLIC MEETING: MORE FLOODS-MORE FUEL POVERTY? video clips

ENERGY CRISIS, CLIMATE CRISIS – WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

Emergency public meeting organised by Brent Campaign Against Climate Change and Brent Friends of the Earth. Supported by Brent Housing Action, Brent Trades Union Council and Brent Fightback. Speakers: Sophie Neuburg (Friends of the Earth), Ewa Jasiewicz (Fuel Poverty Action), Pilgrim Tucker (Unite Community), Suzanne Jeffery (One Million Climate Jobs Campaign)

Thursday 20 February, 7.30 pm, Chalkhill Primary School Sports Hall, Anton Place,  Bowater Road (off Chalkhill Road), Wembley Park. Free admission 


 



Introduction (Martin Francis Brent Green Party) and Suzanne Jefferies (1 Million Climate Jobs Campaign )

Ruth London (Fuel Poverty Action)
Sophie Neuberg (Friends of the Earth)
 Murad Qureshi AM
 
Questions and discussion part 1



 Questions and discussion part 2

9 Feb 2014

Women's Assembly conference

Saturday, 22 February 2014 from 10:00 to 17:00 (GMT)
Conway Hall
Red Lion Square
WC1 London
United Kingdom

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The People's Assembly is pleased to announce the Women's Assembly conference date as announced in the Guardian, to take place on Saturday 22nd February 2014 at Conway Hall, London. 

Organised by women for women, all self defining women welcome. If you do not self define as a woman you can support the assembly by helping out publicise and inviting your women friends :-)Here's some of the speakers confirmed so far...

Dianne Abbot MP, Sarah Veale TUC, Lindsey German Stop The War, KAte Hudson CND, Diana Holland Unite, Gloria Mills UNISON, Francesca Martinez, Natalie Bennet Green Party, Cllr Rania Khan, Kate Smurthwaite comedian, Barbara Ntumy, Mya Pope-Weidemann, Kerry Abel Abortion Rights, Sabby Dhalu UAF, Doreen Massey, Christine Blower NUT and many more tbc... 

Workshops include: Comunity organising, Health, Women & Work: All Work and no equal pay, Anti-racism, Women & War, Transport, Education and more...

After the assembly we will be going to a pub round the corner :-)

Please let us know if you can help with stewarding on the day by emailing us atwomen@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk
Perhaps you could ask your local union or campaigning group to help with transport costs or to sponsor women from your area. 

You can help by sharing this event on Facebook and Twitter

We hope you can make it!

In comradely sisterhood, 
Women's Assembly

4 Feb 2014

Monday, 3 February 2014


Passengers face massive disruption if Boris’s cuts to ticket offices happen


The Mayor of London’s proposal to close all London Underground ticket offices and cut
up to 1,000 tube staff is apparently supported by 82 per cent of Londoners, according
to a poll commissioned by TfL.

However the question they ask in their poll doesn’t mention either the ticket office
closures, or cutting a thousand staff, but TfL are now claiming public endorsement for
the cuts. Polls commissioned by the unions also show overwhelming opposition from
passengers to these cuts.

Closing ticket offices which are only used by 3 per cent of people making journeys
does not sound much of a problem, except when you translate that into over a 100,000
people a day who are queuing up to sort out the issues which the machines can’t help
them with.

I can see some merit to the argument that we utilize new technology to make staff
more accessible, but these plans combine the closures with a huge reduction in staffing.
Fewer staff will be around and when they are wandering about, we may, or may not, be
lucky enough to bump into them. Ticket offices in most stations provide a reassuring
focus point where you know you can find someone.

The presence of a staffed office provides an invaluable source of advice and
assistance to passengers, way beyond the function of merely selling tickets. Get rid of
a 1000 staff and you lose that reassuring presence which helps passengers feel safer,
especially if travelling after dark.

Crime and abuse sadly occur in society and tube stations are no exception. In a recent
 survey of disabled travellers “enhancing personal security and safety” was ranked
consistently as the most important benefit that staff provide to disabled passengers.
CCTV cameras can never replace staff in making passengers feel safe waiting on a
dark platform at night.

As we have tragically seen in recent years, emergencies do happen on our transport
network and deleting staff posts as the number of passengers flowing through stations
increases is irresponsible and could lead to injury or loss of life on the expanding tube
network.

This Mayor – Boris Johnson – presided over annual fare hikes above the rate of
inflation every year between 2008 and 2013. During this time, the real average increase
in TfL fares was 11 per cent, hitting Londoners’ pockets over and over again.

Meanwhile, he throws away vast sums of public money on a succession of vanity projects
 including his New Bus and his cable car. While the Mayor wants to shed staff from tube
stations to save money, the additional cost for the extra staff on the back of the 600 Boris
Buses is an estimated £30m a year.

With record numbers using the tube and a massive predicted increase in passenger
numbers these cuts to staffing are unnecessary, unsafe and unworkable.

He has slashed away at our public services. Earlier this month, 10 of London’s oldest fire
stations closed their doors for the last time, 14 fire engines were withdrawn and 552
firefighter jobs were axed – all victims of this Mayor’s decision to cut council tax for the
 average family by 7p per week to make a political point, rather than safeguard our
communities.

He has also presided over police front counter closures and is pushing for City Hall
security services to be outsourced too.

Tube workers have been rightly praised, as heroes during the terrorist attacks, for
making the Olympics a success and for keeping London moving. They now deserve
 our full support in their fight for a safe, properly staff tube.

Industrial action is a last resort and no one wants strikes, least of all tube workers who
 lose pay. But passengers face disruption and a worse service for years to come if
these cuts take place.

This Mayor opposed the closure of 40 ticket offices by his predecessor and entered
office in 2008 with a firm pledge to keep ticket offices open. He repeated his promise
again in 2010. Now we see the Mayor quietly ditching his commitments and hoping
nobody will notice.

I hope Londoners will see what he’s really doing and object to these dangerous cuts.

Written by Darren Johnson, Green Party London AM 

2 Feb 2014

Hands Off London Transport public meeting 31/01/2014

Hands Off London Transport public meeting 31/01/2014, featuring Natalie Bennett and speakers from RMT, GPEW, HOLT& Youth Fight for Jobs

1 Feb 2014

Kensal Rise Library closed and demolished by All Souls College's estate managers



 Published on 31 Jan 2014 by Martin Francis

At 5am on January 31st 2014 security employed by All Souls College's estate managers demolished the community pop up library outside the closed down Kensal Rise Library. Residents had erected the pop up library to preserve a book and learning space after Brent Council had itself carried out a dawn raid and seized the library in pursuit of its 'library transformation project' which closed half the borough's libraries. Developer Andrew Gillick wants to knock down the library and build flats and negotiations have been going on about allocating space for a community library. No detailed plans have been forthcoming and yesterday Friends of Kensal Rise Library announced they would not support Gillick's revised application. Meanwhile the result of a police investigation into the existence of hundreds of false emails submitted in favour of the previous application has yet to be concluded.

Kilburn Unemployed Workers' Group update

KILBURN JOBCENTRE FIT-FOR-WORK?

DWP jobcentres, in conjunction with G4S security staff, seem to be treating claimants with such contempt, making claiming such a horrible experience in order to put people off. By rudeness, crassness, and pure obstructiveness, in league with faceless Hoxton Decision-making adjudicators, people are having their entitlements cut, without proper safeguards or warnings, so when people get annoyed, they are further banned, or the DWP cowards phone the cops. Having been ourselves at the brunt of this skulduggery, the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group want attitudes and actions changed, of course realising that the Government, of all the 3 mainstream parties, want to make our lives a misery, in order to cut the dreaded ‘Welfare Bill’. The same rotten policies were applied with the Workhouses, where the jobless were actively treated like scum, but eventually history showed how wrong, absurd, and barbaric this ‘legal’ attitude was.

We realise that most workers initially join public services to help service users, but governments with cost-cutting programmes, put so much pressure on workers under the name of ‘productivity’ that they can regretfully acquiesce to these despicable practices. Note the negligence of citizens at the BBC, care homes, Stafford Hospital, etc where complaining to the top brass or whistle-blowing, could mean getting bullied or sacked. We at the KUWG want to work with the PCS & GMB unions, and management, in establishing proper actual practices, not paper policies, in non-discrimination of claimants. IDS, in his wife’s mansion, doesn’t suffer confrontational laws. We also note that in the Ukraine the people have had enough and have managed to force their government’s cabinet to resign, and drop unfair laws...if they can do it, we should too!

We have planned protests on Wednesday 19th February 2014 on National Anti-Atos day. Atos are the so-called ‘Medical Assessors’ who infamously in league with the DWP, wrongly determine sick people either “Fit-for-Work” or “Fit-to-prepare-for-work”, and we have helped overturn some of these ludicrous and spiteful ‘decisions’.. The protests will be 8am-10am Neasden Atos, and 3pm-4pm Lisson Grove Atos if you want your voice heard.

We are leafleting outside Kilburn Jobcentre Monday 3rd February 2014 11-noon to publicise the government’s draconian legislation that produces thuggish & brutish tactics. With the UK rich having an “economic recovery”, at our expense, maybe in “Austerity Britain” being BRITISH = being BRUTISH? We appreciate that most DWP and G4S employees DO want to help claimants, but are under pressure due to lack of staff, with stupid regulations, and are left struggling to cope by Whitehall mandarins. Use your collective strength to organise against parliamentary vindictiveness, as we do, & join us in solidarity against vicious laws that we believe break human rights.

The Kiburn Unemployed Workers Group (linked to Brent and Camden Trades Councils and Unite Community Union) meets every Thursday 3pm-5.30pm in the Small Hall, Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, (Off Quex Road) , NW6 2JH. (Disabled Access available). We discuss cases, help with paperwork and attend meetings (Our motto is “Never attend anywhere official alone”), and help with campaigning and protesting for ANYONE unemployed. Our contact details are: mobile: 07579 965 704,


DWP, G4S, ATOS-TAKE YOUR DIRTINESS ELSEWHERE!