June 19:Public Services Not Private Profit
Socialist Party members were among over 60 trade unionists who met for a Swansea Trades Council-hosted rally of the campaign ‘Public Services Not Private Profit’ (PSNPP).

report by Ronny Job(Swansea TC)

June 13:Anti Racist gig in Newport
Socialist Party members in Newport have helped to organise a Love Music, Hate Racism gig in Newport on Friday 13th June. It is taking place in the Pen & Wig on Stow Hill at 7.30 pm.
This is part of the build up for the Love Music, Hate Racism demo in London on June 21st. Socialist Party members are campaigning through Youth Against Racism in Europe and International Socialist Resistance against the BNP. See article
details of the gig....
for information about the campaign....

May 23: Wales TUC- Victory for Democracy!
Socialist Party members made an impact at a fairly subdued Wales TUC in Llandudno which met in the shadow of New Labour's meltdown in the local elections and during their hammering in Crewe.
Rob Williams (Swansea )
Working with other rank and file delegates, we foiled plans to make the conference a biennial event. Apparently, the Unison delegation forced their leadership to oppose the plan on the general council, which was particularly annoying to Unite who publicly declared their support for this proposal in the Morning Star. Clearly, for these public sector workers facing New Labour's pay restraint and privatisation, this was an undemocratic step too far. Socialist Party member Andrew Price from Cardiff Trades Council, also won a conference vote which opened the door to force an emergency motion criticising Assembly Members' 8.3% pay rise. However, through undemocratic sleight of hand, this was denied by the leadership. When Bernard Roome (Swansea Trades Council) responded with a 'point of order', the chair just turned his microphone off!

However, the union officialdom couldn't silence the criticism of New Labour in London and Cardiff from the rank and file and even full-time officials. Time and time again, delegates voiced their anger and outrage at New Labour's anti-working class policies. Swansea Trades Council's motion in support of the Prison Officers Association (POA) called for solidarity action by the union movement to support the POA from having their right to strike removed. The general council recommended support for this and the RMT's motion against the anti-trade union laws with the 'qualification' that the action be legal. Both Bob Crow and Rob Williams told the conference that the movement had to make a choice about defying the laws, still on the statute book after 11 years of New Labour in power! Both motions were passed.

While Wales TUC may not represent the high point of the Welsh trade union movement, it is still a channel for the massive discontent that exists within the working class. PCS and Cardiff Trades Council argued successfully for the unity of public sector workers to defeat the pay freeze. To keep this channel open on an annual basis. However, it is the struggle of workers in Wales and throughout the rest of the UK that will transform the trade union movement. Significantly, a Wales Shop Stewards Network fringe meeting met to launch the network in North Wales. 30 copies of the socialist were sold and £120 fighting fund was raised.

May 20: Cardiff school saved from the wreckers.
Campaigners from Lansdowne Primary School in Canton in Cardiff are celebrating this week after winning their fight to save their school.
Report by Ross Saunders
( Cardiff West Socialist Party, Unison Steward Fitzalan High School)

Eight months of hard, well-organised campaigning by parents, staff and community members has proved that fighting back can win results. The victory has given a huge boost to schools like Llanedeyrn, Cefn Onn and Llanrumney, which still lie under the axe.The campaign forced school closures to the top of the agenda in the recent Council elections. Socialist Alternative candidates standing under the banner of Save Our Schools gained respectable votes and Plaid Cymru were pressured into opposing the school closures. Plaid has now joined forces with the Lib Dems on the Council Executive. Cantonian High School will also remain open and anew school for over-crowded Welsh-language Primary Ysgol Treganna. will be built. But the school closures programme has not been withdrawn.
These developments have exposed the lies peddled by local Labour councillors, who claimed building a new Welsh-language school was impossible without closing an English-speaking school.
Plaid, which has been able to fake left while in opposition, now faces having to administer closures in the city, or come up against its own party members in the WAG coalition with Labour. Canton has won its battle for now, but campaigners have expressed their sympathy with the other schools still on the closures list. People in other parts of the city will ask how Plaid can close schools in their area while saving those in their own back yard.
Socialist Party members, who have supported Lansdowne and the other schools campaigns from the beginning, are calling for so-called "surplus places" to be redistributed amongst all the schools in Cardiff in order to lower class sizes and raise standards, and demands the funding arrangements be changed in order to allow this. Colossal pressure has been able to divert the main parties from attacks in some parts of the city, but until a new party that acts in the interests of ordinary people is created, campaigners will have to continue their fight against school closures and job cuts in education.