Issue: 2183
Dated: 09 Jan 2010
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Hundreds of IT workers at Fujitsu services are to start five days of strikes this week.
Over 200 low paid hospital workers started two days of strike action on Tuesday, following the refusal of their employer Sodexo and the local NHS trust to implement a pay agreement dating back to 2006. During the day, with heavy snow falling, nearly all of those on strike attended the picket.
The credit crunch, the economic crisis, and now the deep recession have ravaged working class people’s lives. But importantly, resistance during the recession has shown the power of workers to fight back.
The UN’s climate talks in Copenhagen last month were a bitter disappointment for millions of people around the world who are concerned about the future of the planet.
More than 200 hospital domestics, catering staff and porters in North Devon were set to strike for two days as Socialist Worker went to press. This follows a 97 percent vote for strike action.
The High Court has ruled against plans by Barnet council in north London to cut the jobs of sheltered housing wardens. The decision gave campaigners cause to cheer in the run-up to Christmas.
Refuse lorry drivers in Chester employed by the private contractor FOCSA struck for a day against a derisory 1 percent pay offer at the end of December.
Housing activist Nicola Winters has been sacked by the Castle Point Voluntary Network in Southend, Essex.
Workers at the Fujitsu services company are stepping up their fight for jobs, pay and pensions this week with the start of five days of strikes on Thursday and Friday. More action is set to follow on Monday, Thursday and Friday of next week.
Strikes by fire crews in South Yorkshire could be back on after FBU union members rejected a deal on new shifts recommended by union negotiators.
Mark Serwotka has been re-elected as the general secretary of the PCS civil service workers’ union for a third term. Some 37,866 PCS members voted for Serwotka and 21,883 voted for his right wing challenger Rob Bryson.
Rank and file postal workers in the CWU union have produced a statement on the state of the dispute, which lays out the type of deal the union should be fighting for.
A court injunction stopped a planned strike by some 14,000 cabin crew workers at British Airways (BA) from going ahead last month.
Over 90 workers and students from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15 December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education. Activists came a variety of institutions including UCL, Westminster University, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan University and Sussex University.
Britain's largest bus operator has been convicted of breaching health and safety obligations over the death of one of its London drivers.
Why are you standing for deputy general secretary?
The Economist magazine recently ran a particularly excruciating image on its front cover.
Elections are coming up for the national executive committee of the UCU lecturers’ union. They come at a time when we are facing the biggest onslaught on post-16 education in decades.
Two groups of workers on London Underground struck over the Christmas period. Around 120 workers employed by EDF Energy Powerlink struck for 28 hours from 8pm on 22 December and for 12 hours from 8pm on Boxing Day.
Signalling staff in Wales and the Marches area are striking for six days this week against the imposition of rosters at the South Wales Control Centre.
Bus workers at CT Plus in Hackney, east London, struck for the second time on 16 December.
"Insulting." That was the most common response from workers at East London Bus Group (ELGB) as they voted by a huge margin to throw out a new pay offer in December.
There were protests around the world last month on the anniversary of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
The family of Mikey Powell, who died in police custody in 2003, say the verdict of the inquest into his death has given them "truth and justice".
Yemen has become the latest "rogue state" to be targeted in the US-led "war on terror".
Yemen has been ripped apart by decades of war waged by British colonialism, US imperialism and the Western powers’ proxy forces in the region.
Reading the news over the past couple of weeks, you would be forgiven for thinking that a major terrorist attack had killed many Americans on a flight to Detroit.
The number of women taking part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work has increased by 123,000 in recent months, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Despite Gordon Brown’s prediction that the worst of the recession is over, it is continuing to blight the lives of millions of people across Britain.
As if the crisis in education wasn’t bad enough, business secretary Peter Mandelson announced millions of pounds worth of new cuts just days before Christmas.
The PCS civil service workers’ union is gearing up for national strike action over a huge attack on redundancy terms that it sees as preparation for job cuts.
It is the ultimate indictment of more than a decade of New Labour government that David Cameron’s Conservatives can pose as a cuddly, progressive alternative.
A US court has thrown out the case of five US mercenaries who confessed to shooting Iraqi civilians in September 2007.
Around 2,000 Egyptian riot police have attacked members of the Viva Palestina aid convoy at the port of al-Arish – on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza – after the convoy was refused entry to the crossing.
Striking workers at IT company Fujitsu services braved snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures to hold pickets today, on the first of five days of national strike action over jobs, pay and pensions.
The opposition movement that emerged after Iran’s presidential election last June has defied the government clampdown by using official events to organise mass demonstrations.
Foreign secretary David Miliband has posed as a friend of the movement, calling on the Iranian government to "respect human rights".
The video (in French) shows Gaza Freedom March in Cairo at the end of December
A recent report condemning British schools for damaging learning reminded me of a great educational project I took part in last year.
The United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen last month proved to be a historic watershed. This isn’t because of what it achieved.
william Morris is known today for his exquisite patterned wallpapers, his famous chair design, and his rule, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
On 24 November 1909, over 20,000 garment workers walked out of hundreds of workshops in New York. This strike has become known as the "Uprising of the Twenty Thousand".
Corporate chiefs and political leaders around the world have welcomed 2010 with a growing sense of foreboding as economic crisis continues to stalk the globe.
It’s the winter of 1978. The prime minister is keeping a panicked watch on strikes—in incredible detail.
The newly released archives from 1979 give an insight into Margaret Thatcher’s thinking. They also show that, in private, Tories are even more reactionary than they are in public.
Congratulations to Phil Johns of Plymouth, Heather MacBryde of Greenock and Keith Shilson of Penzance who were the winners of the Socialist Worker Christmas competition.
Independent publisher Serpent’s Tail is bringing MP Chris Mullin’s 1982 political thriller back into print.
Yes, this is a murder mystery – but it is also much more than that.
Every morning of the week, in the middle of the Today news programme, Radio 4 offers its "Thought for the Day" – a reflection on ethical questions of the moment.
Mick Mulcahy is a mental health education development worker in the NHS and an active member of the Unison union and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
After the G20 protests last year, the initial media response was that the police had done a marvellous job.
I first came across Frank Henderson in the Wolverhampton branch of the SWP in 1987.
Letters
‘If this is global warming, heaven preserve us from the opposite.’The Daily Express newspaper greets snow with a limited grasp of climate change