At a time of massive cuts and redundancies, restructures and “refocusing” in Local Government and the civil service and schools; inevitably, the issue of greater workloads comes to the fore. It’s very easy for senior managers to attempt to try and solve their immediate problems by pushing the whole burden of work onto those people who didn’t get their P45s in the post.  Too often this means impossible demands being placed on front line workers, more often than not the lowest paid and in most cases women. Tory plans for the NHS mean that the same process will be witnessed in the NHS, with horrendous consequences.

Further to our previous article, Galloway's victory puts spotlight on Labour’s failure to offer any alternative, Walter Leon provides more analysis of the recent by-election in Bradford, underlining the real shift to the left taking place among ordinary working class people and what this means for the Labour Party.

The remarkable victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election has sent a massive cannon ball across the bough of the Labour leadership. At a time of huge unpopularity of the Coalition government, Labour should have romped home in this traditional heartland. To their astonishment, Labour was driven into second place behind George Galloway, who scored a massive 36.59% swing from Labour to Respect.

A few weeks ago, everyone was expecting industrial action on 28 March in the next stage in the pensions’ campaign involving the public sector unions PCS, NUT, and UCU. A section of the RMT was also due to take part, as was the FBU. There were high expectations that up to a million trade unionists would take industrial action to defend workers against the vicious attacks of the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition. In the end, one union after another pulled out.

The month of March is the season for student union elections in Britain. Thanks to the setting up of Marxist societies, and as a result of the tremendous student movements of recent years, Socialist Appeal are now present on many campuses across the country, and a solid base of young Marxists now exists in several universities. Socialist Appeal comrades stood in two student union elections recently: Ben Gliniecki and Arsalan Ghani stood for President of the Students Union and President of the Graduate Union in Cambridge University; Nico Baldion and Paul Bolton stood for the positions of President and Education Officer respectively at the University of Arts London.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), the British government has only implemented 6% of its planned cuts to date. This is an austerity programme that is £10 billion behind schedule and which is set to last well beyond the next parliament. Although 6% is but a small step on a long road of enforced privation, already we can see the devastating effects this is having on millions of people