Well, well, well, just when you think society cannot become more debased, news comes along that Laura Johnson has been appointed permanent Director of Development and Property at the Barnet Group, which manages the borough's 13,000 council homes. This is the same Laura Johnson who, as Director of Housing at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, played a principal role in the cost-cutting that led to the Grenfell fire.

Cardiff, Durham, Hertfordshire, Sheffield... the list of struggling HEIs goes on and on. If anything was clear as this stage, it's that the funding model for Higher Education is simply not working. Like most of capitalist or quasi-capitalist ventures, leaving everything to the market is not only wasteful but is also extremely damaging of workers' livelihoods. Young people and others who wish to embark on a University course are increasingly thinking twice about doing so because of mounting costs, often questionable quality as provision is cut to the bone and a future that is as doubtful as the continuance of some universities in the UK.
Once again, as many times before, workers on the front line are doing their best to defend their jobs and provide the "service" that managers expect. Strikes, partial strikes and pickets are robust across the land. The picture, nevertheless, is one of abandonment - first by a political class that is not interested in raising true discerning and combative educational tools for the future and second by supposedly national trade unions that have not even managed to mobilise throughout the country. Individual workers and groups of workers at institutions are more or less left to their own devices... and fates. No national strategy prevails. No joined-up movement to stop the rot has been created. Meanwhile, union officers, often in well-paid positions, maintain their jobs at the expense of high membership fees.
Not only is it time for a mobilisation along the lines of a national strike in the sector, it is also time to embrace a new form of unions based on democratic control and forms of direct action such as the boycott and strikes. Syndicalism historically and today where it is resurgent under the banner of the International Workers' Association (established in 1922) is doing just that. Slowly but surely, we are claiming back what is ours and what we produce through our labour. Join us in the fight.
For base unions, direct action and democratic control! For a fighting union now and social transformation in the future!
SFEU

We are the Solidarity Federation, a network of local groups who want to take action against bosses, landlords and capitalism.

We want to talk to you about ways you can organise at work that can actually get results, whether the problem is dodgy contracts, missed breaks, pay, or if your boss is a wanker. We believe that organised workers taking action into their own hands is what's needed, not just having to leave your job, having to take it, or going through a big bureaucratic union or HR department.

Come along to talk to organisers from SolFed and connect with local workers to discuss issues that face us at work and in the community and what we can do about it.

Learn more about the Solidarity Federation Hospitality Workers Union (SFHWU) online at solfedhwu.noblogs.org or email us at sfhwu@riseup.net