FIVE THOUSAND nursery nurses struck over pay in Scotland last week. The five days of strikes were staggered so workers at nurseries in different regions took action starting on different days. Scottish nursery nurses have not had their pay scales regraded for 15 years. After working for ten years a nursery nurse can expect to earn a maximum of £13,800.
ABOUT 100 bus drivers lobbied parliament on Wednesday of last week to demand the government protects London's transport industry from a threatened £125 million cut in funding. Drivers also explained that their pensions were under threat and that living and working in London is next to impossible without London weighting payments.
OPPOSITION IS growing among firefighters and emergency control room operators over the latest stage of the pay deal the government forced on them earlier this year. The executive of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has put stage two of the agreement out to consultation. The executive is to reconvene next week to decide whether to accept it.
FOLLOWING A 500-strong public meeting, councillors in Preston, Lancashire, were set to discuss an historic proposal to twin the city with the besieged Palestinian town of Nablus on Thursday of this week. The proposal is the culmination of the campaign led by Socialist Alliance councillor Michael Lavalette, who will propose the motion. It will be seconded by Labour councillor Elaine Abbott.
THOUSANDS OF postal workers were forced to take unofficial strike action across London and Essex this week in a battle against their brutal bosses. They know their union, the CWU, and the whole way postal workers are treated at work is at stake.
IT'S OFFICIAL. The British government is so worried by the prospect of anti-war protests that it has downgraded its plans for US president George Bush's state visit.
A TOP union leader in the Communication Workers Union launched a bitter attack on New Labour last week and questioned further union funding for the party. The speech came from Dave Ward, the union's deputy general secretary (postal). He was speaking to 300 strikers taking part in action over London weighting on Thursday of last week,
FOUR DERAILMENTS this year. Two last weekend within 36 hours of each other, leaving seven people hospitalised. Tube workers and passengers are up in arms over safety on the underground now that its track, signalling and stations have been handed over to private companies by Labour ministers.
THE MOST powerful corporations are vulnerable to workers' action. The mighty Ford motor company has had to halt production of Transit vans at its Southampton factory because disruption at its factory in Belgium left it without essential parts. The 1,603 Southampton workers were sent on training courses indefinitely last week.
JOHN REID, the health secretary, was set to visit one of the US's biggest providers of private healthcare this week, Kaiser Permanente in Washington. Reid says, "Just because we in Britain reject the insurance-based health system run by private providers it doesn't mean that we cannot learn lessons about how such systems operate elsewhere."
WORKERS AT the Heathrow Express are jubilant after winning their long-running dispute with management. Members of the Aslef rail union have been campaigning for full recognition and bargaining rights on the line, which runs from Paddington to Heathrow, for over two years.
