AN INQUEST began on Monday of this week into the death of Kebba Jobe, who died in police custody in May of last year. Kebba lost consciousness while under restraint and was later found to have had a blockage in his throat.
The drumbeat on climate change in the media was never deafening, but it has been growing steadily louder of late. And now a horrific natural disaster fills the headlines for weeks: the Asian tsunami.
TRINITY MIRROR Southern, one of Britain’s biggest newspaper publishers, last week went to the high court to stop ten of its staff from striking. Members of the NUJ journalists’ union on the Enfield Advertiser struck on Wednesday of last week against cuts caused by the merging of the subediting departments of four Trinity Mirror titles across north London.
HERE’S AN example of a curb on freedom of expression that none of the mainstream media have covered—attempts by the student union at Leeds University to ban the activities of pro-Palestinian activists.
THE UK Zimbabwean Community Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers took a significant step forward when it met in London last Saturday to organise a national demonstration against the deportation of asylum seekers.
Boot out civil service cuts MEMBERS OF the PCS civil service workers’ union in Merseyside protested outside Sefton council’s meeting on Thursday of last week demanding that they act to stop job losses. Gordon Brown’s plans to axe 104,000 civil service jobs will hit 4,000 workers across Merseyside.
THE Lengthy all-out strike by more than 100 social workers in Liverpool’s adoption, fostering and at-risk children’s units came to an end this week as strikers reluctantly accepted a return to work. The return to work deal, which sells the strikers disgracefully short, was negotiated last month by regional officials of the Unison public sector workers’ union. Unison’s industrial action committee then voted to recommend the deal and withdraw support for the strike.
BALLOT PAPERS for the election for the general secretary of Britain’s biggest public sector union, Unison, are sent out on 25 January. Socialist Worker spoke to United Left candidate Jon Rogers.
THE GOVERNMENT has confirmed that almost half of high street post offices are to be handed over to private retailers in the next few years.
OFFICIALS FROM the Unison and GMB unions were due to meet Brighton and Hove council for talks this week about the dispute over pay for teaching assistants. Teaching assistants in Brighton and Hove struck on three days last year against council plans to cut the number of weeks they work, effectively wiping out a promised pay rise.
