DELEGATES AT the annual conference of the broadcasting and entertainment union Bectu delivered a blow to New Labour last weekend. They went against the union's leadership and carried a motion demanding a membership-wide vote on the union's affiliation with the Labour Party. The vote produced a 61 percent majority in favour, with delegates casting branch votes of 9,165 votes for and 5,960 against.
PROTESTS AGAINST the G8 summit of the world's most powerful countries in Evian, France, will begin next week. George Bush will be jetting in for the summit, fresh from the slaughter in Iraq. Evian is not just a chance to protest to demonstrate against the warmongers. It brings together the people who impose brutal capitalist polices across the globe.
ASTONISHING NEW figures show that after six years of New Labour in government we have the biggest gap between rich and poor since 1990. Poverty levels are now higher than under Margaret Thatcher, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
IN A move Margaret Thatcher would be proud of, deputy prime minister John Prescott is closer to imposing a package of cuts and pathetic pay rises on firefighters and control room staff.
THE SCALE, politics and militancy of the anti-war movement colour everything that happens now. Two million people marched against the war on 15 February and, even after the fighting had finished, over 200,000 marched on 12 April. Events of that sort redefine politics and pose new opportunities and challenges to socialists.
JOURNALISTS AT the Telegraph newspapers have overwhelmingly voted for union recognition. The ballot saw 91 percent of those voting support recognition of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). The vote was in a formal ballot under the latest union laws and will lead to recognition.
"THERE ARE schools, but there's no equipment in them. The shops are open, but there is nothing on the shelves. Afghanistan is a lawless country."
AROUND 140 nursery nurses in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, started a five-day strike on Monday. The strikers, who are members of the Unison union, have already taken four days of action and have now stepped up their campaign to win a pay regrading. Jill Hinchliffe, a nursery nurse shop steward, said, "We are determined to win our fight. We have been underpaid for years and they thought we would just put up with it because we cared about the future of the children. But that is the reason that this fight is so important because it is a scandal that so much of the education system relies on low-paid women. There was no shortage of money for the war in Iraq. That money should have been used to p
PARENTS AND teachers at Crofton School in Lewisham, south London, have launched a campaign to stop 11 teaching staff being made redundant. Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) at Crofton are balloting for strike action. If the proposed job cuts go ahead, one in seven teachers at the school will be made redundant.
THE lecturers' AUT union national conference last week took place at a crucial time for union activists in the universities. The government's January white paper on "The Future for Higher Education" threatens universities with the introduction of top-up fees. It also threatens that funding will be concentrated on a small elite of institutions.
THE EXECUTIVE of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) was to meet this week in the wake of John Prescott taking a further step towards imposing a deal on firefighters and control staff. "There is immense anger at Prescott," says Albie Lythgoe from the FBU on Merseyside. "Our brigade has voted to continue to fight by calling more strikes. We are prepared to walk out if Prescott imposes - that's whether the national union calls us out or not. Merseyside is saying no to the Burchill proposals, which our national executive has argued are a basis for settling the dispute. Burchill opens the door to the employers' so called modernisation drive. We should be getting back to a straight fight over p
