THURSDAY, GEORGE Bush endorses Israel's land grab in the Occupied Territories. Friday, he and Tony Blair line up behind Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Saturday, another Palestinian leader is murdered. The fiction of a \"road map to peace\" in the Middle East is dead, murdered by an expansionist Israeli government that wants to humiliate the Palestinians and leave them with a tenth of the land they lived in only two generations ago.
HOW OFTEN do you hear foreigners who are killed or injured in Iraq described as \"contractors\"? US campaigner and film director Michael Moore is one of those who has dug behind the headlines to find out what is going on:
AFTER A 17-day unofficial work stoppage, Oxford postal workers have won a crucial battle. Their courageous stand against bullying and management's failure to take the issue seriously is a massive step forward for workers everywhere. Bullying occurs in every industry. Management invariably do nothing about it or actively instigate and encourage it. Oxford postal workers have shown how to fight back.
AROUND 500 Sainsbury's workers marched on the supermarket headquarters in London on Monday to demand a halt to a pay freeze. A two-tier system started last year when new contracts were offered in exchange for staff giving up overtime and shift premiums. Many long-serving staff who did not accept the \"voluntary\" contracts ended up with their pay frozen.
WHAT RELATIONSHIP to have with the government was the question that dominated the conferences of the three main teachers' unions over Easter. And it is likely to be at the centre of debates at other union conferences over the next three months.
THE HIGHLY successful strike on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week by around 100,000 civil servants in the PCS union showed a real determination among members. People are not willing to give in to low pay and performance-related pay. Leaked documents last week showed how Kevin White, the human resources director at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), disgracefully criticised women staff for their supposed lack of ambition.
AROUND THE country activists held emergency protests last Saturday to protest against the massacre of over 600 Iraqis in Fallujah. Around 250 people assembled in Edinburgh's Parliament Square to hear speeches denouncing the brutality of the occupation. Some 200 protesters marched through Brighton and attended a lively rally.
IT'S NOW possible to draw a balance sheet of the four-week strike earlier this year by lecturers at Leicester College. The deal now agreed means that management have been forced to retreat from their attack on collective bargaining. All staff will now be put onto the contract that the Natfhe union negotiated. This contract includes a number of gains and an action plan to discuss improvements.
OVER 100 people attended a public meeting in Haringey, north London, last Sunday called by the Roger Sylvester Justice Campaign (RSJC). \"Five years after his death we are still fighting for justice,\" said Rupert, his father.
THE 2004 European Social Forum (ESF) is set to take place in London in October. It will bring together tens of thousands of anti-capitalist activists and campaigners. The latest in a series of European Assemblies to plan the ESF took place in Istanbul, Turkey, last weekend.
A SERIOUS threat hangs over one million council workers and related employees. The government wants to push through a crippling pay and conditions deal. The main elements are:
