To Paul Bayliss
Leader of Derby City Council
30 April, 2013 Continue reading Letter to Paul Bayliss, leader of Derby City Council
Proposals to cut staffing on Railways will affect all of us!
Over the next six years train operating companies are embarking upon a new programme of cost-cutting (refer to the McNulty report http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/12658.aspx) that could see:
- over 20,000 railway jobs put at risk,
- the closure of 675 ticket offices and
- a 50 per cent increase in the number of unstaffed stations.
Train companies are driving through the cuts in an attempt to find £3.5bn in efficiency savings by 2019, as requested by the government.
If the cuts go ahead one in ten staff currently working on the railways – including train guards, maintenance workers, and ticket office staff – could lose their jobs and around three-quarters of all the UK’s railway stations could become unstaffed.
This is not a case of creating a million climate jobs but of saving 20,000 Climate Jobs. The better and more attractive the railway service, the easier it will be to get people off the roads and to stop catching planes to places within the UK like Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Therefore Derby climate Coalition supports the TUC led Action for Rail campaign.
Silk Mill March & Rally 2013 features active environmentalists
Support the annual Silk Mill march.
10.30 am Saturday April 27th 2013
Assembly Rooms, Market Place, Derby
The march will go to the Silk Mill for the laying of the chaplet commemorating the struggle of the workers there in 1834 and will then continue back to the Market Square for speeches and entertainment, with the rally starting at midday
Speakers include
Manuel Cortes General Secretary TSSA transport union and
Romayne Phoenix People’s Assembly steering group.
Both are active supporters of environmental issues.
Derby Climate Coalition will be running a stall. Please come and help.
PEAK DISTRICT CLIMATE CHANGE & ECO FESTIVAL
Join us at Cromford Mills to learn about climate change, network with others, and entertain the kids! To find out more about the festival go to www.arkwrightsociety.org.uk
Silk Mill Flooding
Here is a picture of the Silk Mill flooding.
Note the date. But the event happened!
Picture thanks to Derby Telegraph.
Freezing spring – weird weather coming from a melting Arctic?
Action for Rail
Here is a photo from Derby of some of the people who took part in the action of Rail event on March 27, 50 years after the announcement of the Beeching closures. .
Energy We Can All Afford Meeting
We had an ENERGY WE CAN ALL AFFORD meeting in Derby last night, organised by Derby Climate Coalition, just one of a series of 40 public meetings: see www.energywecanallafford.org Continue reading Energy We Can All Afford Meeting
Story of our involvement in Bombardier
In June 2011 the news came through that the Canadian multinational Bombardier had not won the Thameslink contract. The implications for employment and Derby were horrendous, the direct loss of 1400 jobs in Derby, and many more indirectly in the region. This decision was made with no consideration given to the social & economic impact on the UK in awarding this contract overseas. The loss of the contract could have led to the shutdown of the last railway manufacturing plant in Britain, and one might argue that this has not happened because of the mighty fight back by members of the public and the unions.This case study explores how climate activists can work alongside trade unionists in what was at first appearance merely an ‘industrial’ dispute, about jobs. Continue reading Story of our involvement in Bombardier
Derby Telegraph Front Page
The local paper has an exceptional front page today, called global warning.Here is a link to the article which is not as nearly as dramatic as the image: http://www.thisisderbyshire.
Almost all the responses have been from sceptics or telling the council to concentrate on things like ‘pot holes’.