Oxford Left Alternative activists petition inside Cowley Woolworths

Oxford Mini, MFI, Woolworths, City Council, Oxfam, Oxford Archaeology…

Stop the jobs massacre- why no bail out for workers?

With £13 billion handed out in London city bonuses in 2008 alone it is an outrage that thousands of people are being left to face redundancy and repossession without more government support.

Support for Woolworths Staff

Left Alternative supporters have been petitioning inside Cowley centre Woolworth's at the tills in the last few days. Activists Ian and Julie report…

“We made a brief announcement and then 6 of us petitioned the queues across the store. We said that the Local Labour MP and the government should be doing more about the collapse of Woolies and potentially the loss of 30,000 jobs. EVERYBODY AGREED. We talked about the need for a generalised fight back over jobs, pointing out if the government can bail out the bankers they can keep people in work. 200 people signed the petition during our visits on Friday and Saturday, pretty much everybody we asked in the time we spent in the store. Staff took leaflets to hand out to their workmates. People were not only sympathetic about the Woolworth workers but also want action on growing unemployment, with one person already having lost their printing job and home as a result of the crisis. Others faced fights to get benefits for disabled children and worried about their jobs. Our first signer was the wife of ex-post worker who took the opportunity to add to our announcement the fact the Oxford post workers are also fighting for their jobs.”
To support the petition e-mail oxfordrespect@yahoo.co.uk

Proposed Immigration Removal Centre at Bullingdon

Information below from CABIRC...

In May 2008, the UK government announced plans to increase immigration detention 

capacity in the UK. An 800-place centre is to be built across the road from Bullingdon 

Prison. 

 

The ‘Accommodation Centre’ all over again? 

You may recall Home Office efforts to build an Accommodation Centre in 2002. 

Planning permission was unanimously refused by Cherwell District Council, whose 

decision was upheld at public inquiry. The application went to judicial review, and, 

finally, to the Court of Appeal. Work began on the site in 2005. But objections to the 

planning proposals continued. In June 2005, government plans were abandoned. An 

estimated £29.1 million of public money was wasted on this aborted project. 

 

Local popular opposition was the key to this success. It is the 

key to challenging the new detention centre. 

 

Coalition against Bullingdon Immigration Removal Centre 

A local campaign group, known as ‘CABIRC’, has been established to oppose the new 

centre on grounds that: 

• indefinite detention is inhumane and an abuse of human rights 

• expansion of detention is unnecessary given the falling number of asylum 

applications 

• the centre would be an enormous and ill-affordable public expense, costing 

an annual estimated £32 million to run 

• there are planning and environmental objections to the proposal, as there 

were to the Accommodation Centre.  

 

What can you do? 

The planning application was received by Cherwell District Council on 8 December. A 

decision is likely to be recommended at the meeting of the South Area Planning 

Committee on either 19 February or 12 March 2009. 

 

Residents are encouraged to: 

• study the planning application (ref. no. 08/02511/F), available online via the 

planning portal, http://cherweb.cherwell- 

dc.gov.uk/publicaccess/tdc/DcApplication/weeklylist_searchform.aspx 

• write to oppose it, to your district councillors, and to Cherwell District Council 

(Planning), Bodicote House, White Post Road, Bodicote, Banbury OX15 4AA 

• write to Tony Baldry MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA 

• write a letter to the local press: bicesteradvertiser.letters@nqo.com; 

letters@oxfordtimes.co.uk 

• join CABIRC to campaign against the centre, or make a donation. 

 

Reasons to oppose the application 

• unnecessary: there are already two designated prisons for foreign national 

prisoners; and the number of asylum seekers is a quarter of the number in 2000 

• a rural location, not identified as a site for employment growth – development 

here undermines local planning policy  

• a large unsustainable site, with poor public transport: unacceptable increases in 

traffic congestion; a danger to pedestrians 

• a brightly-lit and noisy site causing light and noise pollution in a rural area 

• environmental impact: including harm to the countryside, wildlife habitats, water 

supply and disposal in an area with existing water problems 

• human rights and safety considerations: the history of nearby Campsfield IRC 

shows that protests by detainees, fires and escapes are to be expected. 

 

For further information, please see www.cabirc.org.uk, or email info@cabirc.org.uk. 

OLA Winter ‘Grassroots’ newsletter out now

The latest edition of the OLA Grassroots newsletter is out now in 2 and 8 page format. To order a copy e-mail oxfordrespect@yahoo.co.uk

Oxford activists support climate march

There was a good turnout from Oxford on the London Climate march on December 6th। In addition to a coach organised by the Campaign against Climate change (to be featured on French TV Channel 4), many people made their way down to London under their own steam. The march was very lively this year with a clear focus on four issues 1) No new Coal power stations 2) No to expansion of agro-fuels 3) No third runway 4) Yes to investment in Green jobs.

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7768867.stm

The CaCC urgently needs funds to build on the work it has done, please visit: http://www.campaigncc.org/ for more info

Close Campsfield (15th Anniversary Demonstration)

Around 100 people joined a protest last Saturday to mark the 15th anniversary of the opening on the Campsfield detention centre।

Over 2,600 people, nearly all of them asylum seekers, are locked up indetention camps and prisons in Britain, without trial and without timelimit and with no automatic right to bail. The government is building newdetention centres with a target capacity of 4000. The asylum seekingprocess is arbitrary and punishes innocent refugees not for anything theyhave done, but in the hope of deterring others from exercising their rightunder the Geneva Convention to claim asylum in Britain
For more information सी:
- Campaign to Close Campsfield - http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk/- Barbed Wire Britain - http://www.barbedwirebritain.org.uk/

Climate March 2008 local details

London protest December 6th 2008

Oxford coach tickets £7 and £10 from Inner Bookshop, Magdalen Street and Quaker Meeting House, St Giles. Coach leaves 10am from St Giles.

Part of a Global Day of Action - see www.globalclimatecampaign.org 
- last year 70+ countries were involved !

The march this year goes to Parliament Square to demand that the government act now on climate. The march will now start at Grosvenor Square (5 mins from Speakers Corner, Hyde Park - Bond Street or Marble Arch tube.Apologies for any confusion over starting point see more here) - assemble 12 noon. Full schedule here

Speakers will include Nick Clegg (leader Liberal Democrat Party), Caroline Lucas (leader, Green party), Michael Meacher (ex-Environment Minister) andGeorge Monbiot (Honorary President, Campaign against Climate Change).

The march will be preceeded by a climate protest bike ride starting from Lincoln's Inn Fields at 10.30 am: see more here.

There will be a Climate Change Service at Hinde Street church at 11.30 am - worshippers will join the march afterwards. See more here.

There will be an After-Party in the Synergy Centre from 5.00 pm till late.

For info about coaches or other transport from around the country to the march click here. 
For a "Coach organiser's guide" see here.

To download leaflet for the National March click here

The March on Parliament has four main themes - 
1) NO to a 3rd runway at Heathrow and the runaway expansion in aviation expansion. 
2) NO new coal - no new coal-fired power stations as planned at eg Kingsnorth in Kent 
3) NO to the expansion of agrofuels - with negative impacts on forests, the climate and world food supply. 
4) YES to a renewable energy revolution and green jobs - a "Green new Deal" 
Come with your own banners, costumes etc on one of these themes (if you fancy !) and join up with others pushing that theme......

The March on Parliament for the Climate marks the Saturday midway through the UN Climate Talks in Poznan, Poland and we make our demands on the UK government in solidarity with the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities that will suffer worst and most immediately from climate change caused overwhelmingly by the rich long-industrialised countries.

We need the government to act now on climate, to stop building coal-fired power stations and new runways - and to begin the renewable energy revolution. We need a tidal wave of people outside parliament to make them act to stop climate catastrophe now ! Be part of that tidal wave, be there ! Next year may be too late. 
Why so critical now ? See here.

OLA Public Meeting

Oxford Left Alternative Public Meeting
Tuesday 18th Nov, 7.30pm Town Hall, St Aldates
Speaker: Pete Dwyer (Economics Tutor at Ruskin (personal capacity))

The financial crisis and the Left

All welcome