Ealing Trades Union Council Invites You To A PUBLIC MEETING

 HANDS OFF OUR HOSPITALS & NHS!

Wednesday 17th April  @  7.45pm in Ruskin Hall, Church Road, just off Acton High Street
Ealing Trades Union Council has organised a Save Our Hospitals & NHS Public Meeting in Acton on 17th April and hope you will come.

As you know we have a big fight on our hands to save our local NHS. NHS NW London bosses in a final act of vandalism, before they were abolished, voted to close our local Accident & Emergency Depts and other services at Ealing, Charing Cross, Hammersmith & Central Middlesex Hospitals.  Their decision is being reviewed and can be overturned by the Government, but only if we pile on the pressure and force them to back off.  A demonstration has been called by the Save our Hospitals Campaign in Ealing on Saturday 27th April and it needs to be very big. We hope that our meeting will be both informative and, get people involved in building the demonstration.

SPEAKERS:
Dr John Lister is Director of London Health Emergency and a gripping and informative speaker. He will be speaking about the huge threat to our NHS posed by cuts, closures and privatisation – and what we can do about it.

Andy Slaughter MP has been a relentless campaigner for our local health services, fighting to defend Charing Cross & Hammersmith Hospitals and is a hard working Hammersmith & Fulham MP.

Judy Shapter is a Acton resident and activist and has been leading the save our hospitals campaign in Acton.

Global Women Strike: The Welfare State is being destroyed. For the first time since 1945, our right to survive is under threat. Caring – in the home, hospitals, schools, and every institution – is being attacked.

We are launching a petition to defend caring. Society must invest in mothers and other carers – the foundation of any society. The petition, “Invest In Caring. Pay carers – Mothers And Others”, is a tool to organise for economic and social policies to be redirected away from the market and towards survival and wellbeing. Please sign it, ask your networks and organisations to sign.

Please support the ”Defend London’s NHS” demo on May 18th, encouraging the widest possible endorsement by CLPs, MPs, AMs, Council Leaders, Councillors etc. This event arguably has the largest potential for mass mobilisation in London over the next couple of months.

The next planning meeting to build for May 18th will be on Tuesday April 16th at 6.30 p.m. at Camden Town Hall (Judd Street, WC1).   All those wishing to help build for a big demonstration will be welcome. With all best wishes for any promotional publicity which you can offer.

Grand Committee Room, House of Commons Description: Description: Description: cid:0E450F1090549A45839B0A873BF9995A@parliament.uk

London SW1  Westminster Description: Description: Description: cid:B44780C5684B1E4CAA0049CE347D0A77@parliament.uk

Mothers are called ‘workless’ and are impoverished – Income Support is being abolished, Child Benefit is no longer universal. Disabled people were hailed as heroes for great individual achievements during the Paralympics, but now benefits that guarantee their survival and independent living are being cut, and so are the allowances for their carers. Nurses and care workers are blamed for lack of care. But who cares for them – their understaffing, overwork and low wages?

Machines are replacing human labour. But instead of a shorter work week for all, we face longer hours for some, unemployment for others, and falling wages for most – this market-driven economy doesn’t care about anyone.

With welfare, official wages couldn’t fall below benefit level. Without welfare there is no bottom. Already workfare (work for benefits) is bringing in slave labour and bypassing the minimum wage. It was declared illegal so the government backdated the regulation and Labour (with a few exceptions) didn’t oppose, they abstained! Even the TUC has endorsed workfare!

Welfare was to prevent poverty and insecurity. It was an entitlement. It is being replaced with charity and destitution – food banks, food vouchers, evictions, relocation, deportation. The bedroom tax and benefit cap are designed to take our homes – those on low incomes, many of us people of colour, are being ethnically and socially cleansed out of London and other high-rent areas to make space for the rich.

The Welfare State was created after World War II when the UK was bankrupt. There is more accumulated wealth than ever now, but none for caring. As the richest 1% get richer, we suffer inequality and social neglect, war and environmental destruction. Despite climate change threatening our very existence, successive governments have claimed that tackling it is ‘not practical’. It is even being dropped from the school curriculum!

Invest In A Caring Society. Pay Carers – Mothers & Others.
Mothers are the primary carers everywhere in the world. Caring for children, sick, disabled and elderly people is work vital to society. Carers are deprived of income and resources. Income Support is being abolished. Child Benefit is no longer universal. Carer’s Allowance is insultingly low and most carers don’t qualify. When mothers are impoverished, children suffer hunger and ill-health, and are more often taken into care.

Mothers are told they are ‘workless’ and that earning is more important than caring. They are pushed into jobs regardless of hours, pay or childcare provision. They are forced into unpaid work to ‘earn’ their benefits (‘workfare’). ‘Workfare’ bypasses the minimum wage, driving down all wages, especially women’s, and undermining pay equity.

Employed mothers (or fathers) who take time off to care for children or relatives, lose pay, promotion and future pension. When caring work is devalued, people, relationships and life itself are devalued. The result is inequity and social neglect, but also environmental destruction and war.

Demanding resources for caring redirects economic and social policies towards people and the planet – and away from the uncaring market. We demand that:
·        Caring must be recognised as vital work for the whole society.
·        Mothers and other carers must be entitled to payment and resources for this work, including paid time off.
·        Carer’s Allowance must be paid to all carers and raised to a living wage.
Issued by: Global Women’s Strike (GWS)
gws@globalwomenstrike.net or call: 020 7482 2496