Dying for an iPhone released on Pluto books covers the working conditions in Foxconn where the iPhone is assembled. Housemans recently hosted Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake who read from Protest: Stories of Resistance, which is a work of fiction based on historical fact. The final video is a series of ‘Marxism in a Minute’ put together by Hadas Thier who wrote a ‘Peoples Guide to Capitalism’.
Already the backsliding begins. ITV news is reporting that the Government has changed one point in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. They have accepted that academies will retain their ‘freedom’ to set their own pay scales for teachers. So the criteria in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions document will only apply to teachers in Local Authority schools. Why have the Government climbed down on this issue? It’s not as if this is a major financial problem for academies. But what will be the next change/climb down by the Government? Will academies be exempt from the National Curriculum? Will Local Authorities be able to build schools according to the needs of their communities or will all new schools, as at present, have to be academies?