Outrage spread across the NHS this week at news of the sacking of leading health trade unionist Karen Reissmann, a nurse with 25 years experience of working in mental health in Manchester.
Pakistan’s dictator Pervez Musharraf has launched a wave of repression by imposing martial law, banning public assemblies and shutting down independent TV stations.
Within 24 hours of it being declared, over 200 people defied the state of emergency to gather on the steps of the Karachi press club.
A growing revolt by postal workers is threatening to scupper the deal negotiated by their CWU union leadership to end the dispute with Royal Mail.
The key issue in my branch is the imposition of new working practices – for example, the longs and shorts (where we might be instructed to work only six hours on a Tuesday but up to nine hours on a Friday), and the 30 minutes of "flexible" time on a daily basis.
The vote by the CWU union's postal executive to accept and recommend Royal Mail's offer to the membership was not unanimous. Many of those in leading positions in the union recognise that the deal falls far short of what could have been achieved.
Postal workers in many parts of the country are still "doing the job properly". This means they start at agreed times, take their allotted breaks, do not use their private cars on deliveries and stick to the agreed bag weights.
Walk out at Revenue & Customs Hundreds of civil service workers in Revenue & Customs have walked out unofficially after management announced plans to withdraw flexitime for workers. This is a change in workers’ contracts.
Tens of thousands of PCS members in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are to ballot for strike action over their pay offer.
Some 68 percent of members in the PCS civil service workers’ union voted to back strike action in the union’s long-running battle over job cuts, pay and privatisation.
Left wing activists in the Amicus section of the Unite union are putting themselves forward to be nominated by branches for next year’s national executive elections.
Ballot papers have now been sent out for the NUT teacher’s union national elections.
