RAIL AND London Underground workers are set to stage a one-day strike, called by their RMT union. Over 7,500 signallers, station staff and maintenance workers at rail infrastructure company Network Rail are due to strike for 24 hours from 6.30pm on Tuesday.
KEPT IN the dark and fed bullshit. That's exactly how mushroom pickers working in Britain felt after a ruling over their pay by the High Court in London last week. These workers, like many in the agriculture industry, suffer low pay and long hours. They were pleased with a decision from the Agricultural Workers Board to increase their pay this October.
THE 10 JUNE election results are a mass rebellion against the major parties in British politics. The Labour Party got its lowest ever vote, after over 100 years of promising ordinary people that it would make their lives better.
ACCUMULATED BITTERNESS with Labour and alienation from the main parties burst out in last week's elections. For the first time more than half of those who voted did not back one of the two main parties.
The Respect vote around the country Lindsey German, Respect candidate for London mayor, wins fifth place-beating the British National Party and others London mayoral elections (first preferences)
Respect was launched just 20 weeks ago. It was almost totally excluded by the media. Yet it scored some big successes.
Grassroots campaigns that built an anti-war alternative to New Labour
In Birmingham and other areas Respect got a significant vote. Activists explain why
"ELECTIONS 2004. The year we break through." That was the boast on the Nazi British National Party's (BNP) website throughout the election. Instead they suffered a big setback last week. The BNP's leader Nick Griffin had invited the French Nazi Le Pen over to Britain in April to plan how they could work together when Griffin became MEP for the north west of England.
"WHY IS this still going on so many years after the case of Stephen Lawrence? I don't think the police have learned the lessons. It's been swept under the carpet." So says Michael Abatan, brother of Jay, a black man who died after being attacked by a gang of white men in Brighton on 24 January 1999. The family have spent the last five years trying to get justice for Jay. Jay's death came two months after the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
IMMENSE AND dogged pressure by firefighters has forced their union leaders to stop a headlong retreat in the face of employers' demands to slash conditions. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) executive last week voted unanimously to reject the employers' wording on new arrangements for night shifts and bank holidays.
