SOME 1,000 Otis lift engineers were due to continue their strike action on Friday of this week in a dispute over pay. Otis is the world's largest manufacturer of lifts with businesses in 200 countries. Yet it imposed a 1.7 percent pay deal. Workers, who are in the Amicus union, have rejected a further 2.2 percent offer, which would only be granted by local managers based on individual interviews.
MICHAEL Meacher was New Labour's environment minister from 1997 until he was sacked by Tony Blair a fortnight ago. In government Meacher was in charge of policy on genetically modified (GM) crops. Now he has blown apart the whole case for GM crops pushed by Blair and that government. In a devastating article in last weekend's Independent on Sunday, Meacher accused Blair of ignoring scientific evidence on potential dangers from GM crops.
UP TO 70,000 people took part in the protests outside the European Union summit near Salonika, Greece, last weekend. "It was a tremendous sight as people came together down the seafront in the centre of the city," says Panos Garganas, editor of Socialist Worker's sister paper in Greece, Workers Solidarity.
US FORCES have launched military operations in central Iraq over the last few days on a scale not seen since the height of the war. This is the same war that was supposed to have ended two months ago. Instead of liberation and justice, there are daily reports of civilian suffering. US troops are breaking into homes, rounding up young men and opening fire on bystanders.
A 102 year old woman in Kent faces eviction from her care home because she can't afford to pay the increased fees. Winifred Humphrey is a victim of the privatisation of care for the elderly. Over 86 percent of care homes are in private sector hands. They are run as a business with high fees for residents and low pay for staff. This is the reality of Blair's "modernisation" of public services.
AS THE car giant Ford celebrated its hundredth anniversary, it was also being fined £300,000 for safety breaches that led to the death of a worker. Christopher Shute drowned in a vat of hot paint at the Ford factory in Southampton.
THE RELENTLESS testing of school pupils is coming under increasing fire from teachers and parents. But as anger grows against the tests, education secretary Charles Clarke has announced that even more will be inflicted on school students. Clarke is demanding that pupils are tested in all subjects at the age of 14 so they can decide which subjects to drop at GCSE level.
ISRAELI PEACE activists say Ariel Sharon ordered the assassination of a leader of the Palestinian group Hamas in order to "bury" any chance of peace. The Gush Shalom group says the attempted assassination of Dr Abdel Azziz Rantisi on Tuesday of last week was designed "to destroy Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen and prevent a planned truce".
IF YOU think college fees are terrible now, look what could be in store. The government says it wants to cap top-up fees at £3,000. But the retiring vice chancellor of Cambridge University, Alec Broers, has called for the cap to be raised to £6,000.
ANTI-NAZI campaigners are building local support for demonstrations on Saturday 28 June against the Nazi British National Party (BNP) councillors in their area. The marches in Burnley, Dudley, Broxbourne and Halifax are mobilising a range of people opposed to the BNP. In Burnley the BNP has eight councillors, and was standing a candidate in the by-election on Thursday of this week.
OVER 300 people marched in Manchester last Saturday to mark the opening of Refugee Week. They demanded the end of the war on asylum seekers and an end to their destitution. Zeesham Mirza, ten years old and originally from Pakistan, told the rally, "On Wednesday we will be out of our house, there will be no social or anything. My dad is not allowed to work. We have nothing."
