Issue: 2285
Dated: 14 Jan 2012
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It’s a critical week for the fight to stop Tory attacks on public sector pensions. Trade union leaders and rank and file workers are meeting to discuss the government’s latest deal and the way forward.
Bus drivers at Stagecoach in Barnsley and Rawmarsh have carried over their strikes into the new year.
Over 2,000 workers in three unions are preparing for a new round of strikes at consumer goods giant Unilever next week.
Some 150 electricians returned their unsigned contracts in protest to Balfour Beatty’s headquarters at Hillington in Scotland last Friday.
Bus drivers at London Sovereign in north west London are set to vote on a new offer in their long-running pay dispute on Friday of this week.
Miners’ wives and other women supporters of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike unfurled a banner (right) last Friday outside the first Chesterfield showing of the new film about Margaret Thatcher.
Doctors in the BMA union are being surveyed to ask whether they would be prepared to strike.
Newspaper journalists at major titles owned by Newsquest are being balloted for strikes over pay.
BBC workers in Birmingham have voted by 87 percent for strikes.
Disabled people and their supporters were set to lobby the House of Lords on Wednesday of this week against measures in the Welfare Reform Bill.
Voting begins this week in the by-election for a seat on Unison’s national executive council.
The cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness resumed on Monday in the trial of six Zimbabwe socialists.
Revenue and Customs (HMRC) workers in the PCS union were set to strike this coming Monday.
Workers at Doncaster council are to ballot on whether to accept or reject a 4 percent pay cut.
Baggage handlers at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport will stop striking at the end of this month, their union has announced.
Workers at a drug treatment centre in Hackney, east London, are to ballot for industrial action against cuts to jobs and services.
The campaign against academies is gathering pace. Some 600 people packed into a public meeting at Downhills school in Haringey, north London, on Monday this week.
Council tenants in Swindon have rejected the transfer of their 10,500 homes to a new housing association. They voted by over 72 percent to maintain public ownership.
Welfare benefits give people a "false sense of security", Labour leader Ed Miliband announced last week.
The Home Office has been forced to pay six-figure compensation to a Kurdish family who were detained as children for a record 13 months.
Around 450 trade union activists came together on Saturday of last week to show their determination to keep up the pensions fight—and debate the way forward.
Merseyside police have been concealing evidence that could expose a significant miscarriage of justice. Eddie Gilfoyle was jailed for life in 1993 but has maintained his innocence.
A US marine sergeant accused of murdering 24 Iraqi citizens in the town of Haditha in 2005 stands trial this week.
A government panel has joined the chorus of right wing voices seeking to blame migrants for rising unemployment.
Workers at La Senza are occupying at the company’s store in Dublin’s Liffey Valley shopping centre. Some 1,300 workers in Britain and Ireland were left without a job when the company went into administration on Monday.
Tony Blair’s company Windrush Ventures had a turnover of £12 million last year—but somehow only paid £315,000 in tax.
The Liberal Democrats’ biggest ever donor has been arrested while on the run dodging a seven-year jail sentence for fraud. Michael Brown bankrolled the party’s lies with £2.4 million of stolen money.
Disabled people have produced a report that lays bare the scale of opposition to the government’s plans to reform disability benefits.
The "heads of agreement" signed by Unison, Unite and GMB union officials before Christmas adds up to a total betrayal on public sector pensions.
Government plans to make us work three years longer would mean that workers have to literally work until they break.
The Unison union’s local government and education service group executives today voted to accept the government’s outline deal on pensions.
Hundreds of electricians protested today against a planned working agreement which could see their wages cut by about 35 per cent.
The Unite union's committee representing members in government departments and the Ministry of Defence has unanimously voted to reject the government's "heads of agreement" deal over pensions.
Workers at La Senza are occupying at the company’s store in Dublin’s Liffey Valley shopping centre. Some 1,300 workers in Britain and Ireland were left without a job when the company went into administration on Monday.
Union leaders met at the TUC in London today, Thursday, to discuss the battle with the Tory government over public sector pensions.
Bus drivers in the Unite union at Barnsley and Rawmarsh have voted to reject the latest offer from their employer Stagecoach.
Leaders of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) unanimously rejected the government’s pre-Xmas Heads of Agreement proposals on pensions at its emergency NEC yesterday, Thursday.
An emergency national meeting of Unite the Resistance brought together over 400 trade union activists in London today to discuss the future of the pensions fight.
The Republican primaries in the US—the long process that decides who the party’s presidential candidate will be—started in the Midwestern state of Iowa last week. The contest moved on to New Hampshire this Tuesday.
Workers across Greece’s Attica region plan to walk out on Tuesday of next week in solidarity with three all-out strikes.
Nigeria arose on Monday as its workers began an indefinite general strike.
Western governments are once again beating the drums of war and launching an economic assault on Iran by imposing crippling sanctions.
2011 was the year when what often seemed like Marxist abstractions—crisis, revolution and mass strikes—became living realities.
The Socialist Workers Party held its annual conference last weekend.
Michael Bradley, an SWP industrial organiser, opened a session on class struggle and organising in workplaces.
The murder of Stephen Lawrence in April 1993, and the nearly two-decade campaign for justice that followed it, changed Britain forever.
22 April 1993
One day in June 1998 I sat in a cafe in the Elephant and Castle shopping centre in south east London during a break in the Macpherson inquiry.
As Stephen lay bleeding to death, police received the first reports of an attack.
On the night of the murder, while the police were at the scene, a red Vauxhall Astra drove past. It was full of white youths laughing and jeering. It came back a few minutes later.
The attack on Stephen was part of a spate in the area carried out by racists.
Activists in south east London remember how the racists were left to rampage for years—while the police turned their fire on them.
In May 1993, just a few weeks after Stephen Lawrence’s murder, openly sieg-heiling BNP councillor Derek Beacon was elected on the Isle of Dogs.
Duwayne Brooks was Stephen Lawrence’s best friend and was with him when he was murdered. He was a victim of a racist attack and a witness to that attack.
Within days of Stephen’s murder, people were out on the streets leafleting and petitioning. There were two demonstrations in the next ten days through Eltham.
At the Socialist Workers Party conference national secretary Charlie Kimber introduced a session on building the party.
Weyman Bennett from the central committee introduced a session on riots, racism and anti-fascism.
Leading off the session on students, Hannah Dee spoke of a "new radical left" inside the universities that has been built up during the student movement.
An important discussion took place about women’s oppression. Delegates discussed the fight against sexism. They also wanted to ensure that women were leading within the party.
Just days after two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers were sentenced, the main issue of race dominating the media was black Labour MP Diane Abbott’s tweet.
David Cameron’s demand for a referendum on Scottish independence within 18 months was a cynical attempt to protect the unity of the British state.
Vic Finkelstein was a pioneering activist and academic whose work profoundly shaped and influenced the disability movement.
Many Socialist Worker readers will be saddened to hear of the death on New Year’s Day of teacher comrade John Boyle.
Police racism runs far deeper than they admit I was a student in Sheffield when Stephen Lawrence was murdered.
‘I am fully in favour of this campaign. Getting behind this will show these thugs that they have made a big mistake’