The Age of Austerity: Fighting Cuts and Privatisation – Hands Off Our Schools!

The local UCU association at Nottingham University is currently organising a series of talks on local anti-cuts initiatives. The purpose is to highlight the broader dimension of the coalition government’s attack on the public sector and welfare state. This post provides an account of the second event in this series, the presentation by Andrea Oates from the local anti-academies initiative ‘Hands Off Our Schools’ on Wednesday, 24 April.

Let’s accept a smaller slice of a shrinking cake: Irish public sector trade unions in crisis.

Trade unions find themselves in difficult situations during times of economic crisis. Should they negotiate with the government and potentially become co-opted into austerity policies or should they resist any cuts in public spending and risk being completely excluded from the policy-making process? In this guest post, Roland Erne raises some crucial questions in relation to current developments in Ireland.

World Social Forum: where next after Tunis?

Since its first meeting in Porto Alegre/Brazil in 2001, the World Social Forum has provided a key focus and meeting point for groups opposed to neo-liberal globalisation. Considering the current crisis of the global economy, success of the Forum process has become ever more urgent. In this guest post, John Hilary assesses the most recent World Social Forum, which took place in Tunis from 26 to 30 March 2013.