Lizzie Woods

Lizzie Woods is a Wales-born trade unionist, the daughter of Marxist theorist and author Alan Woods. She is based in London as the national organiser of the Labour Representation Committee, declaring at the 2011 conference that "we must organise within and without of the Labour Party. Too many good people have fallen by the wayside. There is much more that unites us than will ever divide us".

She is an organiser and negotiator for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)^[1] and led a high profile campaign for cleaners of Buckingham Palace, winning them a 16% pay raise. She is a graduate of the TUC Organising Academy.^[2]

Woods spent her early years in Francoist Madrid, where her family participated in the struggle against the Franco regime, before moving to her mother's native Wales, to the village of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen near Ammanford, a mining community. She attended early morning picket lines as a child against the pit closures.

In 1987, Woods led a nationwide school students strike against student loans, and was dubbed "Firebrand Leisa" by the national press. She organised school students and community groups against the poll tax, with a massive delegation of school students from London leading the anti-poll tax march in London.^[3]

She is a regular contributor to socialist journal Labour Briefing, formerly known as Voice of the Unions. Woods is the daughter of Marxist theorist and author Alan Woods.

References

1. Charlotte Higgins, "National Gallery staff strike over low pay", Guardian.co.uk, 23 February 2010.
2. "Welcome Organising Academy Class of 2009". strongerunions.org. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
3. "Poll tax riots - 20 years after violence shook London", bbc.co.uk, 31 March 2010.