This year’s winner of Scrooge of the Year award is Sinn Fein’s answer to Margaret Thatcher, Caitriona Ruane, with 37% of the vote. Socialist Youth held many street stalls in Belfast to ballot the public to see which boss or politician they thought was most deserving of the title.

Caitriona Ruane received such a high vote because of her role in attacking classroom assistants’ terms and condition but even she had many rivals for the award. Coming in second with 18% of the vote was Domino's Pizza, who make £700 million every year, but leave workers in Wolverhampton and Derby with negative wages by charging extortionate rent and insurance.

In third place with 15% was Seagate who, despite receiving £15 million in public money since 2001, closed their profitable Limavady plant just before Christmas, sacking over 900 workers. Stormont Finance Minister Peter Robinson who has promised to make 1,000 public servants redundant received 14% of the vote.

Many of those who where asked to vote found it hard to choose a winner. A common phrase being “they’re all as bad as each other” and Socialist Youth couldn’t agree more. We will step up our work to build a socialist alternative to the bosses and their lackeys in the Assembly in 2008!

Belfast Socialist Youth has  re-launched the Young Socialist bulletin to raise awareness of Socialist Youth, the issues we have been campaigning on and the need for a socialist alternative. We distributed over 600 into schools, techs and colleges and got a friendly response.

The bulletin included an article on attacks on young workers rights, like Gordon Brown’s plan to cut our minimum wage from £5.52 to £4.80 an hour and Sir Reg Empey’s attack on apprentices, as well as the fact that Socialist Youth are exposing low-paying employers through our Fightback! campaign. An article also appeared on our sticker campaign against fascist material being put up around Belfast.

Next month’s bulletin will deal with the issue of youth debt, an important issue with 19% of 22-24 year olds having short-term debts over £5,000 and the present situation in Iraq.

If you would like to distribute the Young Socialist please contact socialist.youth@btconnect.com or ring 02890232962.

To view the current issue, please click here.

University of Ulster staff and student canteens at Jordanstown are to be closed with the loss of 50 jobs. The proposed closure of Bentra and Antrim canteens is to make way for private eateries such as The Streat and O'Brien’s that already occupy space on the campus and possibly the American sandwich franchise Subway.

This is a blatant attempt to privatise another corner of the lucrative student market and another sop to big business by the University.

Students, especially the 500 or so who live on campus, and staff will be forced to pay extortionate prices for their meals rather than the reasonable rates currently offered by the canteens for good nutritious food. In particular, international students who can spend most of their year on site, will be unable to get a proper meal at the University and will be forced to fork out for junk food.

Angry students and staff have formed a protest group which is currently in the process of organising meetings. There is a lot of support among the students, unions and staff. The University of Ulster Socialist Society has met with an organiser of the campaign and has pledged support in the struggle ahead.

Contact University of Ulster Socialist Society – uusocialistsociety@yahoo.com.