Issue: 2277
Dated: 12 Nov 2011
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It’s on—30 November promises to be the biggest day of strikes for almost a century.
Ever since the first trade unions were set up, workers have argued over what to do about their leaders.
Over 2,000 people marched from Occupy London’s St Paul’s Cathedral camp to Parliament Square last Saturday. It was part of a day of action to spread the occupation’s message to the public. The City of London and the cathedral now say they will not move protesters until after Christmas.
The city of Oakland in northern California, home of the fifth largest port in the US, saw incredible scenes on Wednesday evening last week. More than 15,000 people descended on the port to shut it down as part of the first strike to be called by the Occupy movement.
There are now at least 15 occupations underway across Britain—in Bath, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Isle of Wight, London Stock Exchange, London Finsbury Square, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Plymouth and Sheffield.
Over 800 delegates have now signed up for the Unite the Resistance national convention due to be held in London on 19 November. It aims to build support for the 30 November public sector strikes.
A magnificent strike by NUT union members closed Langdon School in Newham, east London, for two days last week.
The threat of a five-day strike at Barnsley College forced a sudden change of heart from college management last week.
Birmingham Student activists occupied Birmingham university’s Corporate Conference Centre on Wednesday of last week.
Some two dozen supporters and workmates of sacked Unite union convenor Abdul Omer Mohsin gathered outside his employment tribunal, which started in Watford on Monday.
Over 70 anti-privatisation campaigners met in Edinburgh on Tuesday of last week.
Teachers at Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley, west Yorkshire, were set to strike on Thursday of this week.
A ballot of thousands of workers at the BBC began on Monday this week.
Newham Council, the host borough for the Olympic games, plan to celebrate the event by closing the closest leisure centre to the £9.3 billion Olympic park.
Up to 100 residents, firefighters, Labour Party and anti-cuts activists gathered in Halesowen town centre in Dudley last Saturday to fight the proposed closure of the town’s fire station.
Sacked health worker and union activist Yunus Bakhsh has won another sensational victory in his long-running battle for justice.
Youth workers in Oxfordshire struck on Tuesday of last week.
Firefighters in London have begun their ballot for action short of a strike.
Unite union members at the homelessness charity Centrepoint in London have voted again to strike against wage cuts and redundancies.
After five weeks and 330 miles, 20 young marchers arrived in London with a 12,000-name petition calling for action to create jobs.
Hull City council has admitted that it released the wrong body to the family of Christopher Alder. Christopher, a 37 year old former soldier, died in police custody in 1998.
Around 50 people demonstrated against shale gas drilling, also known as fracking, outside an industry summit in Kensington, west London, on Wednesday of last week (see picture).
Christopher Alder choked to death on the floor of a police station in Hull on 1 April 1998.
Babar Ahmad’s campaign has achieved its aim of getting over 100,000 people to sign an e-petition against his extradition. More than 120,000 have now signed the petition calling for a parliamentary debate on Babar’s case.
A national protest at parliament will challenge government attacks on tenants and demand action to build homes.
Five protesters were imprisoned for violent disorder on Friday last week.
campaigners in the north west of England will launch a campaign on Sunday to unseat Nazi British National Party leader Nick Griffin.
Teachers and lecturers in Scotland's EIS education union delivered a resounding yes vote in their ballot for action on pensions.
The Tories are hell-bent on forcing public sector workers to work longer and pay higher pension contributions to receive lower pensions on retirement.
Thousands of students are demonstrating in central London today, Wednesday, to protest against government attacks on education.
Headteachers in the NAHT union have voted overwhelmingly for strikes over pensions. It’s the first vote for strikes in the union’s 114-year history.
Electricians marched to sites across central London today, Wednesday, in their protest against bosses’ plans to tear up their terms and conditions.
The demonstration has now swollen to around 10,000 strong. It is noisy and militant, with delegations of students from across Britain, including Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Oxford and Brighton.
The eurozone crisis is all about bankruptcy. But this isn’t just economic. There is intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy as well.
Politicians and the media use jargon to talk about the crisis that is engulfing the eurozone. This can make it hard to understand what’s really happening.
The French ruling class is desperate to hold on to its triple-A credit rating—and is attacking workers to do it.
In a shock development, lawyers defending the Zimbabwe "treason trialists" claim the main prosecution witness is a fraud.
The Greek government won a vote of confidence last Friday—only to resign on Monday.
"As a nurse I see the problems. Patients’ families often don’t have the basics, from proper nourishment and clothing to books at school.
The rulers of the US, Britain, France and Israel last week teamed up to step up their rhetoric over a military assault on Iran.
The economic and political crisis in Italy is deepening amid growing fears that the country will default on its debt.
Michael Dooley
Sherry Haferkamp has student debt of $200,000—and a degree that is worth nothing.
The Tories and their Lib Dem lackeys want to sell off our education.
The Tories will force nearly a million people off incapacity benefits and leave 600,000 with no benefits at all, according to new research. Nearly 2.6 million claimants currently receive the benefit.
The mass movement unleashed during the uprising against Mubarak has buffeted Egypt’s ruling generals for nine months. And a new phase in the revolutionary process—a shift in the character of the movement from below, has taken place since the end of August.
Brian Richardson says the film Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 offers a unique look at the Black Panther Party
Ricky Gervais says his new "mockumentary" sitcom, Life’s Too Short, is a "naturalist observational comedy, dealing with everyday problems, human foibles and social faux pas… but with a dwarf."
Set in the fictional Summerhouse estate in east London, Top Boy shows the lives of young people who see gang membership as their only means of making a living.
George Clooney turns his hand to political corruption inside the Democratic Party in this new critically acclaimed thriller.
This play is based on the diaries of Chris Mullin, the former Labour MP and author of the classic 1980s novel A Very British Coup.
Results are rolling in. This week saw magnificent votes from the Unison, EIS and Nipsa unions to join the strikes on 30 November. They show the mood out there. Workers are up for a fight.
Pete Carter, one of the most effective building industry rank and file leaders in the in the 1970s, died last month aged 73.
Free school vultures swoop on east London I go to a school in Newham, east London. The other day a group of about 30 of us who they called "gifted and talented" were asked to go into a room after assembly.