Bus, NHS and Workfare Protests

On June 22, New Cross bus garage was shut down by the London bus workers strike in support of a bonus for Olympic Games working comparable to other transport workers. Pickets were outside the garage and judging by the endless beeping were getting plenty of suppport from people driving past.

(picture from East London Lines)

Workers on some bus companies were stopped from striking by court injunctions, but a few days later  (on 27 June) buses were delayed at some of these by demonstrations by strike supporters. This included the London General bus depot on Mandela Way, SE1 - buses for the 1, 453, 507 and 521 routes operate from there. 

(picture from Willo31)

South London Healthcare Trust went into financial meltdown last week, with the Government threatening to put it into administration. NHS Trusts don't sell stuff, apart from some privileged services to private patients, so if they are losing money it generally means that they are not getting enough funding to provide health services. And/or, as in this case, they are paying millions of pounds out each week to private companies for the use of buildings built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme.

Socialist Party supporters protested outside Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich on Saturday, proclaiming 'Scrap PFI, cancel the debt'.

Next weekend (Saturday 7 July), there will be another anti-workfare protest at Blackheath Holland & Barrett shop, meeting at 1 pm  (see reports of previous actions here). Further details on facebook.

[update 7 July - the Blackheath protest has been cancelled after Holland & Barrett announced yesterday that they were pulling out of the workfare scheme].