IMAGINE MORE than one million workers on strike over pensions less than three months before a general election. Wednesday 23 March could be the biggest single strike day in Britain for over 20 years. The anger that people feel about having their old age stolen from them is growing stronger. Workers know that the longer you work, the earlier you die.
HEALTH WORKERS in one Sheffield hospital have formed a pensions action group to plan and build a range of activities over the coming weeks and months.
IT’S BRILLIANT that the unions are getting together to fight this attack. We need to have a big impact and this is the way to do it. We have to involve all kinds of people in this campaign. Young workers and those who haven’t started work yet need to realise the government is taking away their futures.
IT WOULD be a crying shame if the education unions were not involved in the joint strike action proposed for the end of March. The size and anger of a 250-strong teachers’ meeting on Wednesday of last week convinces me that there is the potential to build strikes in the NUT union. We can reach far into our unions with this campaign.
ANTI-WAR ACTIVITY has stepped up around the country in the build up to the 19 March national demonstration demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq.
EGYPTIAN SECURITY forces arrested three socialist activists on Friday of last week.
Tony Benn led the line-up of speakers at a meeting packed with over 400 students hosted by the Goldsmiths College Student Union Peace Campaign, and the Islamic Society last week. Also speaking at the south London university were Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition, Pat Arrowsmith from CND and Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain.
NEW LABOUR is to go into May’s expected general election with an eight-year promise to bring in laws against companies that kill their workers still unfulfilled.
A MEETING of PCS civil service workers’ union reps in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) last week voted in favour of a deal in our pay dispute. This will now be put to the membership, with the union recommending acceptance. The pay offer is over 4 percent for each year of the deal and is weighted towards the lowest paid. But there are still some major problems and PCS members should reject the deal. The DWP will still have more people on poverty pay than many departments. The main problem is that there will still be an appraisal system based on quotas.
THE Threat of more strike action by journalists in the NUJ union at the Enfield Advertiser in north London has won concessions from their Trinity Mirror bosses.
LIVERPOOL Labour MP Bob Wareing has backed the battle against the local council’s assault on union rights. The council, controlled by the Liberal Democrats, has turned on activists in the wake of the recent dispute involving social workers.
