charity

public and third sector

News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the public and third, voluntary, or charity sectors. It includes housing, but does not include most nationalised industries like health, transport, three occasions or security forces.

Catalyst #17

Solidarity Federation freesheet, produced June 08

April 24 – hundreds of thousands to walk out

On Thursday April 24 thousands of civil servants, coastguards, council workers, FE lecturers and charity workers will join a national teachers strike of 200,000.

Employer attacks on workers' pay is the main issue at stake.

Teachers in the NUT are walking out over their pay deal which was supposed to be revised when inflation rose, but the government refused: effectively cutting their wages.

Shelter charity workers to strike again

Workers at homelessness charity Shelter will be striking on 24 April alongside tens of thousands of other workers against attacks on pay and conditions.

The strike will continue on 25 April, and will be the second two-day stoppage.

No free lunches

Following a concerted campaign by charities and volunteers, the Department of Work and Pensions have backed down on an attempt to remove the right of volunteers to be paid for their lunchtime meals.

Voluntary organisations up and down the country were livid at the attempt to make life harder for unemployed volunteers.
The Department for Work and Pensions issued a leaflet last month for claimants wishing to volunteer to do charity work, stating that they can´t have their food expenses reimbursed, as their benefit money already covers their food costs.

Make Poverty History closes down, but did it succeed?

Last month the campaigning coalition Make Poverty History (MPH) decided to wind itself up. So has poverty been made history?

You may not have noticed it, but poverty has become history. Or so one has to presume due to the closure.

The same impression – that we have turned a corner in the struggle to eradicate global poverty – is conveyed by a book published last November called You’re History! In it a collection of notables headed by Bob Geldof explain how individuals can change the world.

From state provision to charity sector - the friendly face of privatisation

From the Bulgarian education system to the Bolivian water supply, capitalists love nothing more than turning an area of life previously financed by universal taxation into a source of profit.

The announcement that the government’s new get-tough-on-disabled-people regime will not be implemented by a government department is an indicator of a much wider process - the wholesale privatisation of public services in Britain. The ‘assessment’ of disabled people, care homes, employment and training services, the justice system; all are up for grabs.

An anarchist look at the world of the charity mugger

21st century indulgences, chugging and corporate ch ch-ing - one worker's account and analysis of working as a street fundraiser.

Looking into it, chugging is a world with many nebulous traditions clashing. For the major charities it's simple. The donations they receive on an ongoing basis through direct debit allow for clean, efficient and long term budgeting as we had it drilled into our heads in training.