AROUND 140 council manual workers, members of the TGWU and GMB unions, met on Wednesday of last week in central Manchester to discuss resistance to the imposition of new contracts by Manchester City Council. Hundreds of cleaners and "street scene" workers face new duties and the loss of weekend working pay enhancements.
HUNDREDS OF workers for Hanson Bricks, Britain's biggest brick producer, are set to take strike action in a dispute over pay. The workers, in the TGWU, Amicus and GMB unions, have voted overwhelmingly to strike. The first strike is set for Monday 9 June. The second day of action is set for Monday 16 June.
A FANTASTICALLY well attended Birmingham Gay Pride 2003 last weekend celebrated cultural and sexual diversity once more with tremendous verve and great style. The weekend was great fun, kicking off with a traditional march from the city centre and continuing with a vibrant street party, market and fairground attractions. There was also a strong political atmosphere and many revellers were concerned by the Nazi BNP's recent council gains.
SOME OF the lowest paid workers in Britain are rebelling. Nursery nurses in Scotland and health workers in North Lincolnshire and east London were set to strike this week for a living wage. They are sick of doing important, caring jobs for pitiful wages that won't pay the bills. They want to be treated with respect, not taken for granted as low paid skivvies.
THE THREAT posed by 16 British National Party(BNP) councillors in Britain has united anti-Nazi campaigners in a call for demonstrations on Saturday 28 June. Protests are planned in Burnley, Broxbourne, Halifax and Tipton - places where the BNP have conned people into voting for them.
"I AM going to completely boycott these tests. I am never doing the SATs in my school again." That's what Birmingham primary school head teacher Carol Lyndon told Socialist Worker on Monday after her frustration at the government's compulsory tests for school children reached breaking point.
BECHTEL, THE biggest vulture to have got its claws into Iraq since the invasion, planned to be in London on Friday this week. It wanted to hand out a few scraps to British firms linked to government projects here. Bechtel is a byword for ruthless privatisation. The US government has given it the principal contract, worth $680 million, to "reconstruct" Iraq.
SOME OF the poorest families in Britain are still waiting for vital tax credits which make all the difference in enabling them to get by. Many have now been waiting over six weeks for money they were supposed to receive on 6 April. Other benefits like free school meals cannot be claimed until tax credits are processed.
EVIDENCE OF a sinister smear campaign against anti-war MP George Galloway is mounting following a mysterious break in at the office of an independent TV production company he is associated with. Files, videos and computer hard drives were removed from AVL Media in Kilmarnock on the very day the Daily Telegraph published its outlandish claims about Galloway.
NEW LABOUR managed to spin a five-year delay over making companies accountable for deaths at work into a dramatic new initiative on Tuesday. Tony Blair promised to introduce a "corporate killing law" in the 1997 general election manifesto.
A SURVEY this week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation confirmed what millions of people know - house prices in Britain are beyond the reach of most working people. The survey, by Steve Wilcox of York University, compared prices of small houses with average incomes of working households, aged between 20 and 39, across England.
BULLYING JOHN Prescott finally got leaders of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) to accept an appalling deal for their 52,000 members on Tuesday. FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist accepts it will mean job losses, but is recommending it is accepted at a special union conference.
