THE RELATIONSHIP between Unison and the Labour Party will be a key theme at the conference of the union's United Left in London on Saturday 6 December. The United Left is the grouping which pulls together a broad spectrum of socialists and left wingers within Unison. A measure of the feelings over government policy within Unison came at a meeting of the union's official national Health Service Group Executive last week.
It was good to read the article in last week's Socialist Worker on the sudden resignation of Lord Conrad Black.
IT IS good news that Nissan workers in Sunderland began a strike ballot this week. It is over management's refusal to talk to the Amicus union about compulsory relocation of the company's purchasing department. It could be the first strike in the plant's history and would shatter the myth of the great "partnership" employer.
HUNDREDS OF Tyneside shipyard workers staged an unofficial "wildcat" strike last week over allegations of bullying in the workplace. The one-day walkout was by around 600 platers, welders and riggers in the Amicus and GMB unions at the giant Amec shipyard in Wallsend on Tyneside.
IN A vindictive move worthy of Margaret Thatcher, the government passed the Fire Service Bill into law last week. It gives government ministers the power to impose pay and conditions on firefighters and emergency control staff.
WORKERS WHO were unfairly dismissed from the Friction Dynamics car parts plant in Caernarfon have voted at a meeting to end the picket on 19 December. But they have vowed their fight to get compensation from American-born owner Craig Smith will continue. The workers have been continuing heroic defiance of the management for over two years.
WORKERS AT the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria escalated their dispute over pay on Friday of last week to two shifts out on strike. This follows an earlier well supported strike. The BNFL company has been dragging its feet over ending the pay gap between white collar and manual workers. The firm made an agreement four years ago to end the £2,000 difference between the workers.
CLEANING workers at Barnsley District Hospital are to hold a ballot for industrial action over pay. The workers are employed by the private firm Initial Hospital Services, which made £2.3 million last year. It is owned by one of the main corporations that run hospital cleaning services in the NHS, Rentokil-Initial.
THE BRITISH National Party has again been beaten back in its attempts to get more councillors elected. The first council by-election was in Oldham, where BNP leader Nick Griffin has long hoped to achieve a breakthrough. But ordinary people in Failsworth East rejected the BNP's lies.
HUNDREDS OF workers in job centres and social security offices in Glasgow and Basildon in Essex held an unofficial walk out on Friday of last week. They responded magnificently to their bosses imposing a terrible pay deal on 85,000 workers in the government's new Department for Work and Pensions. This is the first serious unofficial action in the civil service in over 15 years. The mood is so angry that wildcat strikes could break out again.
