'IN 17 minutes time we will be expelled from the Labour Party. If P&O Ferries, Jarvis or any other employer demanded that we reply to their letter by noon I would treat them with the same contempt. Yesterday Ian McCartney from the Labour Party said that he was worried about "Bob Crow and his controlling group" in the union.
BLAIR'S WAR lies have sickened millions. Now we have the chance to take to the streets and show our anger. The Stop the War Coalition is calling on its supporters to mobilise for a national demonstration in London on 20 March, the first anniversary of the war on Iraq.
LABOUR'S DECISION to expel the RMT union has sent tremors through the wider trade union movement. Intense debate has taken place in many unions over the last few years about whether the unions should continue only to fund Labour. That discussion is now even more pressing.
THOUSANDS OF nursery nurses across Scotland struck on Wednesday of last week and Tuesday of this in their long-running campaign to get recognition for the job they do. "We don't want to have to be on strike," said Margaret Ritchie on the picket line outside Royal Mile primary school in Edinburgh.
BBC WORKERS across Britain staged lunchtime protests on Thursday of last week, following their spontaneous walkouts a week earlier over the Hutton whitewash. The mood of anger against the government, and the BBC governors who had issued a grovelling apology to Blair, was clear. So too was a determination to resist government attempts to exercise even more control of the BBC.
STUDENTS FROM the University of Wales, Swansea, are refusing to allow their institution to be turned into a Thatcherite business. The university has been shaken by massive protests at the announced closure of Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Chemistry and the Centre for Development Studies.
AFTER THE controversy over the Hutton report, Labour-run Haringey Council in north London is seeking a confrontation with journalists in its own press office. The journalists, NUJ members, have faced a union-busting consultant who wants to delete not only any reference to "journalism" in their job descriptions, but their jobs themselves.
THE ALL-OUT strike by 199 workers at LTI (London Taxis International) in Coventry began its third week on Tuesday-and the mood "is as hard, no, harder than ever", one striker told Socialist Worker. The workers, members of the TGWU and Amicus unions, make taxis. They began the strike after months of tortuous negotiations over pay.
SUPPORTERS OF York City Football Club are celebrating the victory of a two-year campaign to save their club and its ground. The Supporters' Trust won control of the club last year, and now a deal has been announced by which the club will remain at its Bootham Crescent home for "the foreseeable future".
A MEETING of more than 100 people called by Crawley Pensioners Action Group kicked off Crawley Against the Council Tax. Christine Melson, of the Isitfair organisation, which led the recent national demo in London over the council tax, spoke. She told us about activists in some areas who have refused to pay last year's bills and face court proceedings as a result.
TWO IMPORTANT meetings took place in the Amicus union last week. Both the new national executive and the joint broad left met for the first time last week. Instead of this being a drive towards a member-led union, as many people want, it saw moves by Derek Simpson to grab more control over the union. This is very unfortunate given Simpson's past record.
Hackney HACKNEY REFUSE workers have suspended their strikes against the imposition of new contracts. The Labour council tore into the workers and their unions after they took action against pay cuts of up to £3,000.
