Issue: 2054
Dated: 09 Jun 2007
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Housing is the biggest headache affecting us all. Fewer and fewer people can afford to buy a home. Those who try find themselves deeper and deeper in debt.
The GMB union has accused the private equity industry of raiding workers’ pensions and dumping liabilities into insolvent pension funds.
Parking attendants working for NCP in Edinburgh have voted overwhelmingly for action over pay.
Forty mostly Polish construction workers at a Metronet site at King's Cross Station in London walked off the job on Friday 25 May in a dispute over late payments.
All the debates of delegates to the GMB union conference in Brighton this week were shaped by Gordon Brown taking over as the New Labour leader.
Bosses on London Underground have imposed new safety rule books. The rules are absolutely fundamental to the way we carry out tasks.
The sacked women at Unique Care in Huddersfield received a timely boost last week. The independent inspection unit reported its findings into the company after an unannounced visit on 17 March.
Local government unions in Swansea have organised a lunchtime protest for Wednesday of this week against the council’s plans to privatise services.
Some 800 workers in the new Unite union working for Southampton council have voted in favour of industrial action over plans to privatise services and transfer employees to a private company.
The Unite union called off a strike involving Tesco distribution drivers in Livingston, near Edinburgh, set for Tuesday of this week.
Workers at the Sunvic plant in Uddingston near Glasgow last week agreed to call off their strike and return to work. The workers were in the 11th week of an all out strike against bosses demanding the right to impose lay-offs.
Ritzy cinema workers strike again Workers at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, south London, struck for a second time on Saturday of last week. The Bectu union members, who voted to strike unanimously, are fighting against poverty pay.
Academy schools are fast becoming the education touchstone for Gordon Brown.
The inaugural congress of the University and College Union (UCU) last week brought together two very distinct unions – the AUT and Natfhe, into a new lecturers’ union.
The congress of the UCU lecturers’ union heard a storming speech from PCS civil service workers’ union general secretary Mark Serwotka. He outlined a strategy for a united fight across the public sector to break Gordon Brown’s pay freeze.
On the first day of the UCU congress, delegates voted by 158 to 99 in favour of a motion that instructed the union to facilitate discussion on Palestine and open the possibility of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
Postal workers in Luton will strike tomorrow (Wednesday) for 24 hours from 5am after a delivery postal worker was sacked. The worker had a nine year unblemished record when, under time pressure, he momentarily left the keys in his van while performing a collection and the vehicle was stolen.
It was a good conference for the new union and the left within it. The potential of a union representing 120,000 educationalists organised at the heart of what is fashionably known as "the knowledge economy" could clearly be seen.
"The worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS." Those are the words of Robert Winston, one of the world’s most respected medical academics, on the scandal of thousands of people receiving HIV contaminated blood in the 1980s.
‘It started with informal discussions – we decided something should be done to organise among migrant workers in the south coast region.
Monday was flight and migration day of action at the G8 protests. Demonstrator Sasha Simic spoke to Socialist Worker about the events.
There were trade union contingents on the protests against the G8 in Rostock last weekend.
The German authorities mounted the biggest security operation since the Second World War for the G8 at Heilingandamm near the north German town of Rostock.
The revelation that the health service is predicted to underspend its budget by up to £500 million will come as shock to the thousands of NHS staff who, should they manage to keep their jobs, face a below inflation pay rise.
"We are committed to supporting effective industrial action if this is what is needed to secure a fair pay deal."
The CWU conference overturned its executive’s recent decision to back Alan Johnson for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party.
The CWU postal and telecom workers’ union conference this week saw delegates pass a motion that sets a deadline to ballot on continued funding for Labour.
The central issue which has made people vote for strikes is the pay cut. We’ve been offered 2.5 percent at a time when inflation is nearly twice that. The basic pay for a postal worker is £323 a week – for a hard job.
Several hundred firefighters and their supporters marched through Truro in Cornwall on Thursday of last week.
Over 2,000 people gathered in Prague in the Czech Republic on Monday this week to protest against the visit of George Bush.
Oil workers have shut down refineries in the south of Iraq as part of a rolling strike. Members of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) launched their strike after the government reneged on a promise to release benefits payments.
The US government faced further legal embarrassment on Monday of this week when a military judge threw out charges against two Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Last weekend prime minister-to-be Gordon Brown announced plans to hand a host of new powers to the police under the pretext of "anti-terrorism".
A national Stop the War demonstration will greet Gordon Brown in Manchester on 24 June as he is officially anointed as Tony Blair’s successor at the special Labour leadership conference.
Gordon Brown and the contenders for deputy leadership of the Labour Party might be making soothing noises about council housing – but the New Labour council in Tower Hamlets, east London, is determined to press ahead with privatisation.
Rose Gentle from Military Families Against the War confronted Gordon Brown when he attended the Labour leadership hustings in Glasgow last Saturday.
Around 150 postal workers in Luton struck today (Wednesday)for 24 hours from 5am after a delivery postal worker was sacked.
The US backed Iraqi government has ordered the arrest of four leaders of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, including Hassan Jumaa Awad, for "sabotaging the Iraqi economy" by organising a strike.
Postal workers across Britain in all sectors of the industry have voted overwhelmingly for a strike to defend their living standards and the postal service.
Anti-war protesters and workers from the threatened Remploy factories for disabled people lobbied the Labour Party hustings for Gordon Brown and the deputy leader contenders on Thursday.
A thousand construction workers are on strike at the Dragon Liquefied Natural Gas terminal site in Waterston, Milford Haven, Wales.
A series of one-day strikes could hit Breckland council in Norfolk.
Britain’s biggest construction union has warned that the building of the Olympic Park and venues for the 2012 games will be hit with similar delays, strikes and spiralling costs to those that plagued Wembley Stadium.
Migrant workers at Roadchef are balloting for strike action after the company threat to withdraw to the M3 service station with motorway only access and no public transport links.
Reacting to the publication of a second report by the Charity Commission into the Mariam Appeal, which was set up in 1998 to provide medical assistance to the people of Iraq, Respect MP George Galloway said:
There are growing fears that the Lebanese army’s assault on the refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared near the northern city of Tripoli will become part of a general offensive against Palestinian refugees across Lebanon.
The biggest strike wave since the end of apartheid is causing a crisis in South African politics – and shaking a government that refuses to increase pay for millions of public sector workers.
This is not only the biggest strike since the end of apartheid, it is also the first time that masses of workers and their leaders have openly and clearly taken on the African National Congress (ANC) government.
A US warship fired missiles on a village in north east Somalia on Friday of last week – a bombardment that was almost completely ignored by the British media.
It’s Monday at the GMB union’s annual conference in Brighton – and the air is thick with calls from senior Labour Party figures to strengthen workers’ rights and build more council housing.
I set out early Wednesday afternoon to the alternative summit in Rostock. At the station, I was told the train wasn’t running – why, they didn’t know.
The US strategy in Iraq is in flux. George Bush’s generals say the "surge" in US troop numbers will continue into spring next year.
‘We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgement." So said Tony Blair in a parting shot at civil liberties before stepping down.
The name Lenin tends to elicit two very different reactions from today’s anti-capitalists. As an uncompromising revolutionary, dedicated to the cause, Lenin remains an inspiring figure to this day.
I was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) when the "June War" or the "Six Day War" broke out between Israel and Egypt and the rest of the Arab world, 40 years ago this month.
In June 1967 Israeli troops marched into East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Sinai Desert and the Golan Heights.
Since 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees had been waiting to return to the homes they had been forced to leave when Israel was founded. By the 1960s a new generation was growing up, one which had known nothing but squalid refugee camps.
By 1967 the US was losing its long and bitter war in Vietnam with the Viet Cong, the peasant-based guerrilla national liberation movement. It was terrified by the prospect of the anti?imperialist movement spreading to the Middle East.
Taking liberties is a new political documentary film that traces how civil rights in Britain have been systematically dismantled under ten years of New Labour.
Histrionics is a huge triangular installation by artist Roderick Buchanan at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. It deals with the issue of sectarianism.
Visual art has, in general, been slow to respond to the challenge of the occupation of Iraq and the "war on terror" – but now things seem to be changing.
Although she is only 29 years old, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has won wide acclaim. Her first novel Purple Hibiscus was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the Booker.
As the G8 leaders gather on the Baltic there is a growing realisation that we face two threats to the future. One is from global warming. The other is the renewed threat of a nuclear war.
Remploy isn’t working I’ve been involved in supported employment for disabled people for over 15 years. In that time I have never seen a situation where a person with a disability could not be supported in real employment with the right support.
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