Some 2,000 council workers in Sefton, Merseyside, struck on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. They were demanding the reinstatement of two leading trade union activists suspended by Sefton council on trumped-up disciplinary charges.

Stop the housing sell-offs

Council tenants in Sefton and Sedgefield are the latest to vote against the transfer of their homes to a private sector housing association landlord.

Merseyside unites after racist murder

The Unity Against Racism festival in Liverpool on Sunday was truly a day to remember.

Anti-fascism

Activists from Unite Against Fascism demonstrated against the National Front in Manchester and Medway, Kent, on Saturday 27 August.

Solidarity with the victims of Section 9

Up to 5,000 refugees face eviction from their homes, all their benefits and support removed and their family split apart as social services take their children into care.

Strike vote on Norfolk buses

A ballot for industrial action among First Eastern Counties bus drivers in Norfolk has seen 93 percent of staff vote for strikes. Drivers say they have now been pushed to the limit by their employers.

Careers staff

Staff at Scottish Enterprise were considering a new pay deal as Socialist Worker went to press. If it is not acceptable then 1,000 workers were to strike on Thursday this week.

Reports round-up

Fight over pay and reprivatisation The RMT union is balloting 1,350 members on South East Trains for strikes to protect pay and conditions at the firm, which faces reprivatisation next year.

Sacked Gate Gourmet workers: ‘put us at centre of this battle’

Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of the T&G union, was to speak at a rally in Glasgow alongside Gate Gourmet workers on Wednesday of this week to build support for the dispute.

SSP get set for Livingston by-election

Robin Cook's death means there will be a by-election — the first since the general election — in the Scottish constituency of Livingston.

A post battle is coming

We are very hopeful that this rally will be the launch pad for an intensified and powerful campaign.

Council workers industrial action threat forces concessions

A preparedness to take industrial action has won a significant victory for council workers in Aberdeen.

NUS demonstration and opposition to bans

The National Union of Students (NUS) executive met last week to discuss this year’s education funding campaign.

Defending pensions

Public sector union leaders met government ministers last week and again rejected moves to raise the pension age to 65.

What next in Bolivia?

If we accept that a fourth world war has begun — launched through globalisation and neo-liberalism by the economic and political powers of the "developed" North — then the strength shown by the Bolivian social movements has made this country a frontline in that war.

Unions struggling together against a bosses’ Britain

Workers at the centre of two disputes that go to the heart of Labour’s anti-union, pro-boss policies came together on a confident, militant protest through Bristol on Friday of last week.

Post workers rally against privatisation

Over 400 postal workers rallied in London on Wednesday against plans for privatisation and "liberalisation".

International

German establishment closes ranks against the left

Ever Since its launch in July, Linkspartei has been picking up significant support across the German working class. This has predictably led to a concerted smear campaign against Oskar Lafontaine, the party’s best known leader.

Building workers win first legal strike in Gulf state

Some 600 construction workers in the Gulf state of Qatar were celebrating last week after they won the first legal strike in the country’s history.

Turkish novelist faces charges for mentioning genocide

Turkey’s most acclaimed novelist, Orhan Pamuk, faces a possible three years in jail after being charged last week with "publicly denigrating Turkish identity".

How the US occupation is murdering the truth

Waleed Khaled was shot by US troops last week while working for Reuters TV. In response US army spokesman General Rick Lynch claimed that the US soldiers "took appropriate measures".

Debt ‘relief’ deal will mean privatisation and attacks on workers’ conditions

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is about to unleash an economic nightmare on Iraq, warn debt campaigners Jubilee Iraq.

Debate grows on French left

When Dominique de Villepin was appointed prime minister of France following the vote against the European Union (EU) constitution in the referendum in May, he promised his first 100 days in office would give confidence back to the French.

Comment

Resistance and federalism in Iraq

Whenever there is occupation there is resistance. All nations have experienced this. Resistance to occupation is legal, legitimate and acceptable.

Features

How workers found a new way to organise

In 1919 British prime minister Lloyd George warned the world’s statesmen at the Paris peace conference, "The whole of the existing order is being called into question by the masses from one end of Europe to the other."

The brutal results of Bush’s callous policy

The US 82nd Airborne Division was deployed to New Orleans last weekend, the first time it had been sent into an American city since the Los Angeles rising of April 1992.

The legacy of slavery laid bare

I’m originally from New Orleans. I know my immediate family there is safe after a few anxiety ridden days of not knowing their situation. The fate of members of the more extended family is not known and we hope for the best.

New Orleans — a black city left to die

New Orleans will not be forgiven. It is a turning point in history. Today tens of millions of Americans hate George Bush with an endless, ragged, bleeding rage. I am one of them.

A city built on brutal exploitation

"Is this what the pioneers of the civil rights movement fought to achieve?" historian Mark Naison asked as Katrina presented the world with images of a desperate, impoverished US seldom seen in the media, "a society where many black people are as trapped and isolated by their poverty as they were by segregation laws?"

America’s cultural heart

Imagining 20th century music without New Orleans is like imagining painting without Picasso. The city has a rich and varied musical tradition, but it is above all the birthplace of jazz.

Tony Benn — more reasons to march

With hurricane Katrina, class and race divisions have surfaced in the US for everyone to see. Socialists have known about these for some time, but for many others it was a clear expression of what US capitalism has done to black people and the poor.

Hurricane will be used to drive out the black poor

I’m surprised that in all of the press coverage of Hurricane Katrina there is no mention of Hurricane Ivan, which hit New Orleans, Louisiana, about a year ago.

Galloway: ‘Katrina shows there are two Americas’

The scenes from the stricken city almost defy belief. Many, many thousands of people left to die in what is the richest, most powerful country on earth.

New Orleans, divided city

The population of New Orleans is 67 percent black. 35 percent of black households do not own a motor vehicle, compared to 15 percent of white households.The city has the second highest rate of child poverty in the US. It is the tenth poorest city in the US. The population of the devastated Lower 9th ward has an average household income of £14,600. A quarter of the households there survive on less than £5,400 a year.Across the state of Louisiana, where New Orleans is located, the equivalent of more than two classrooms of young people drop out of education every day. Many young black men from New Orleans end up in Angola prison, a former slave pla

New Orleans briefs

Halliburton poised to profit Earlier this year US multinational Halliburton confirmed that it had hired the former head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), Joseph Allbaugh, as a consultant on issues including disaster relief and homeland security.

Who says?

"It appears that the money has been moved into the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."Walter Maestri, a former Louisiana emergency management chief

Reviews

Manet — reflecting the dynamism and the emptiness of life

Manet painted this picture in Paris in 1882, only a decade after the working class had been battered in the repression which followed the Paris Commune. It was a time when the expansion of capitalism in western Europe meant rapid industrialisation and mechanisation.

Who Shot the Sheriff? — filming the anti-nazi movement

Who Shot the Sheriff?Directed by Alan MilesLondon Launch, 7.30pm,Thursday 15 SeptemberThe Scala, London, £15<a href="http://www.lmhr.org.uk" target = "_blank">www.lmhr.org.uk</a>