(en) Britain, Solfed Belfast, The Leveller #14 Page 1 - Hands Off Our Leisure Centres + International Women?s Day - Celebrate Organise Resist

Hands Off Our Leisure Centres ---- Opposition has began to Belfast City Council's moves 
towards outsourcing and privatisation of the cities leisure centres and facilities. ---- 
On the 22nd of February the council?s strategic policy and resources committee voted to 
hand our leisure centres over to a trust. In a move to offload essential, but underfunded, 
services city hall will be ditching 10 leisure centres (11 when the council expands in 
May). ---- The council are looking to shed the ?8 million a year that it spends to barely 
maintain our underfunded and rundown leisure centres. 300 workers and thousands of working 
class families who use leisure centres across the city will be affected. DUP chair of the 
committee Gavin Robinson has refused to rule out closures. Similar moves in Magherafelt 
Leisure Centre resulted in the loss of 30 jobs.

Following a meeting attended by over
100 people at Andersonstown Leisure
Centre in West Belfast protests have
taken place with calls for committees,
free of politicians, to be set up across
Belfast to defend our services.

Saturday 1 st of March saw a well
attended protest at the Andersonstown
Leisure Centre. The lively and well
supported protest finished with a march
to the local SDLP offices to protest that
parties support for privatisation.
Another protest, organised by unions
representing council workers, took place
outside Belfast City Hall to coincide with the
vote on privatisation going before the
council.

Opposition to the council?s attempt at
backdoor privatisation resulted in them
deferring the decision for six weeks. It
appears the unions have also been handed
a poison chalice - the council agreed to give
them ?10,000 and 6 weeks to come up with
an ?in house? alternative.

While the protests so far have stayed the
councils hand, for now, an effective
campaign needs to be built against attacks
on services. Services used primarily by poor
and working class communities.
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International Women?s Day - Celebrate Organise Resist

International Women?s Day commemorates
a strike, on March 8th 1857, of hundreds of
women garment and textile workers in New
York City protesting against low wages,
long working hours, and inhumane working
conditions. It is a day on which we proclaim
the ongoing struggle for equality by and
for women.

In Ireland one of the most significant areas
of struggle for equality takes place around
the fight for access to free, safe and legal
abortion - north and south. In the north while
women now make up almost half of the
workforce women?s work is
disproportionately in part-time and poorly
paid jobs. Working class women are
severely effected by government austerity
measures and cuts while having to manage
the bulk of unpaid work in the home.
As well as celebrating women and the
struggles we have won International
Women?s Day must also be a day on which
we reaffirm our commitment to creating a
better, truly equal, society. One free from
patriarchy and capitalist exploitation.
In the short term we must join together with
other working class people in the struggle
against government attacks and for free,
safe and legal abortion on demand.