Category: Front Page Featured

I am honoured to have been elected by the people of Enniskillen. My deepest thanks to everyone who gave me their backing. For me, this is not a personal victory but a political one - it is a victory for cross-community, socialist politics. It reflects a growing opposition to the sectarian games, cuts and backward social policies of the main parties. As well as holding the establishment parties to account in the Council chamber, I will use my position to assist working-class people from all backgrounds in fighting back to defend jobs, public services and our environment. It is fitting that this breakthrough has come in the centenary year of Fermanagh Council of Trade Unions. I hope this is just the beginning. I want to help rebuild the labour movement as…

Labour Alternative gives its full support to teachers in the INTO striking for a pay rise on 18th January. While MLA salaries continue to rise, teachers here have seen their real pay fall by 15% over the last six years and are paid 16% less than the average in developed countries. This is a result of the policies of the Tories, the NI Executive and successive Education Ministers from both Sinn Féin and the DUP. It is obscene that working people are told by Education Minister Peter Weir that there is “no more money” available when £490 million stands to go up in smoke through the botched RHI scheme, overwhelmingly benefitting wealthy bosses and landowners. All the main parties support a cut in corporation tax that will be like an…

Candidates: Sean Burns (South Belfast) - Courtney Robinson (East Belfast) - Conor Sheridan (East Antrim) - More to follow The RHI scandal could see £490 million go up in smoke while 42% live in fuel poverty, welfare is being cut and teachers are being told there is no money for a payrise. The DUP's fingerprints are all over this mess but all five main parties bear responsibility. They endorsed the scheme in the Assembly Executive and they've known about the size of the financial black hole since early last year but it was left to a whistleblower to bring it to the public's attention. This debacle was born out of the culture at Stormont of throwing handouts at big business. The main parties are united in supporting a cut to…

[caption id="attachment_755" align="alignright" width="300"]  Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images[/caption] The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal - which has prompted Martin McGuinness's resignation as Deputy First Minister and looks set to trigger a fresh Assembly election - sums up everything which is wrong with Stormont: corruption, cronyism and sectarian sabre-rattling. While the DUP and Sinn Féin are slashing jobs, benefits and public services, hundreds of millions stand to go up in smoke through the ‘cash for ash’ scheme, overwhelmingly benefitting wealthy bosses. The DUP’s cosy relationship with property developers and business-owners has been exposed by a series of scandals, from Red Sky to NAMA. But Sinn Féin and all the other main parties buy into the neo-liberal ideology that society must be run for profit. They all support cutting corporation tax,…

Labour Alternative representative Conor Sheridan has hit out at East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson's comments about HIV in response to a constituent's request that he back World AIDS Day. Conor said: "Sammy Wilson has implied that people suffering from HIV are somehow less worthy of sympathy and treatment because they likely contracted it as a result of 'lifestyle choices'. This cold attitude mirrors the Victorian concept of the deserving and undeserving poor. Many of the diseases which cause the most deaths in Northern Ireland can be linked to lifestyle factors such as poor diet, smoking and alcohol consumption. I hope Mr Wilson would not dismiss the sufferers of these illnesses in the same haughty way."   "On a global scale, HIV affects millions of people. While the numbers in Northern…

On 30th November, teachers in the NASUWT trade union will take strike action in Belfast and Newtownabbey - the first in a series of regional strikes - in response to the insulting decision of the Minister of Education to withhold the money allocated in the block grant for last year’s pay award. Teachers have lost thousands of pounds as a result of year-on-year real pay cuts since 2011. Labour Alternative stands in solidarity with the teachers taking strike action. We call on parents, students, other education workers and everyone who stands for decent education to show their support for this strike. We also call for the other teaching unions to join future strike action as part of serious campaign for pay restoration. The story of pay cuts and pay freezes…

Caterpillar projects worldwide profit of almost £1.7 billion this year, received £3 million in NI public funds last year NI Executive must introduce legislation which "restricts profitable firms’ ability to simply throw workers on the scrapheap" "Executive have taken £700 million loan to fund redundancies in the public sector. Why can't they find money to save jobs for a change?" "The Stormont politicians' economic strategy of combining austerity for ordinary people with handouts for big business has failed utterly" Labour Alternative has reacted to the news that Caterpillar is to cut 250 jobs over the next two years, with the likely closure of its Monkstown plant, by calling for the Assembly Executive to take the factory into public ownership and introduce legislation to discourage profitable firms from making large-scale redundancies.…

The Hands Off Our Libraries campaign is celebrating victory today after Minister for Communities Paul Givan announced that extra funds have been found to prevent cuts to opening hours at fourteen branches. The campaign organised a day of action on Saturday 25th June, supported by Unite the Union, which saw protests and campaigning at all the libraries under threat. The campaign also picketed Minister Givan's constituency office in Lisburn and delivered thousands of petitions against the cuts to the Department of Communities. Campaign spokesperson Sean Burns said: "This is a significant U-turn on the part of the Minister, under pressure from community activism. We have halted the 'death by a thousand cuts' to which our libraries have been subjected by successive administrations, both at Stormont and Westminster. We can't be…