Richie Venton, SSP National Workplace Organiser Nobody likes to strike, nobody likes to lose 8 days’ salary, nobody likes to cancel classes. But honestly, I’m exhausted. That one comment from a striking UCU member encapsulates the conditions that have driven over 40,000 staff in 61 universities—twelve of them in Scotland—to take eight days’ strike action […]
by Richie Venton Our SSP street stall and street meeting outside Starbucks in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall St today gained a really warm reception from shoppers. As we blasted out the message – over the din of the howling wind! – about multinationals like Starbucks and KFC robbing workers of their rightful wages by calling them apprentices, […]
by Richie Venton, SSP national trade union organiser Main photo: Max McKay – Richie Venton, USDAW NEC member addresses 200-strong trade union solidarity rally at Strathclyde University. “No capitulation!” “Reject the deal and sustain the strike!” That was the angry message from the ranks of striking university staff to their own UCU union leadership after […]
By Ken Ferguson Union activist, shop steward and workplace convenor Richie Venton has won a resounding victory in a hard fought contest for two Scottish seats on the UK executive of the retail and distribution union USDAW. Richie fought the contest on a platform of progressive left demands including an immediate wage of £10 an […]
Richie Venton remembers lifelong peace activist, teacher and much-loved socialist Ron Mackay It is with profound sadness and sense of loss we have to announce the death of SSP member and good friend to many of us, Ron Mackay. Ron, aged 93, was a lifelong socialist and peace activist, and above all an inspiration to […]
by Richie Venton The timing could not have been more obscenely appropriate, as a symbol of the cold class warfare facing working class people under Tory rule, and indeed under the rule of capital over labour in general. Hot on the heels of the destructive closure of SSI steel plant in Redcar, shedding 2,200 jobs, […]
by Richie Venton Even before the election of the Tories – by a mere 24% of registered UK voters – Britain boasted the reprehensible record of having some of the most repressive anti-worker, anti-union laws in the western world. Now David Cameron and his Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, have declared a war on workers’ rights […]
A special archive podcast for friends and comrades today. Richie Venton, in addition to being the Scottish Socialist Party’s national workplace organiser, was formerly a prominent activist in the titanic struggles that took part in the city of Liverpool against the Thatcher Government in the early 80s. Ahead of tomorrow’s vast STUC and UK-wide protests, these […]