GEORGE BUSH, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld - and their media cheerleaders - said it was a "war crime" when captured US soldiers were shown on Iraqi TV. They talked of the Geneva convention. Bush and Blair are hypocrites. The US has held prisoners of war (PoWs) captured in Afghanistan for more than a year with no rights whatever. They have been held in cages, and subject to torture, at Camp X-Ray - the US base on Cuba.
The global anti-war movement has not weakened since Bush and Blair began their war on Thursday of last week. It has reached an even greater scale. Millions marched, struck and protested last Thursday. And on Saturday millions took to the streets in at least 27 different countries.
THE SIZE of the 500,000-strong anti-war demonstration in London last Saturday astounded everyone. It was the high point after two days of unprecedented protest across Britain. As well as the brilliant, much publicised demonstrations of school students, there were significant walkouts of workers last Thursday. Workers often defied their bosses to protest against the war.
THE SCOTTISH Labour Party conference revolted against the war last week. The rebellion was remarkable coming just weeks before the Scottish Parliament elections. The Scottish Labour Party's top officials had tried desperately to prevent a debate on Iraq.
THE RECALLED conference of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in Brighton on Wednesday of last week overwhelmingly threw out a last minute offer from the employers. In doing so, firefighters stood up to the government and the media. The 241 conference delegates, representing 52,000 union members, also overturned their general secretary, Andy Gilchrist, and the majority of the FBU executive. The executive had recommended accepting the offer. There was loud applause and cheering when it was voted down.
"WE HAVE kept silent for so long, but it doesn't mean we don't have anything to say. This is the right time to fight the battle." That is how Rosa, a domestic worker at Homerton Hospital in east London, expressed the determination of low paid health workers at three NHS trusts to strike to win a living wage.
THOUSANDS OF people who could not get to London last Saturday demonstrated in their own cities. Up to 2,500 protesters blocked roads in the centre of Bristol for the third day running while around 4,000 marched through Manchester. Some 1,000 protesters in Newcastle were physically blocked from marching by the police, and 1,000 demonstrated in Aberystwyth, Wales.
LEE BARON in his letter in last week's Socialist Worker attempts to make an impassioned case that an increase in London weighting is somehow opening the door to regional pay. What he fails to mention is London weighting has existed in the Post Office since 1950. Indeed its introduction allowed the then Union of Postal Workers to bring in national pay bargaining.
COLLEGE LECTURERS in the Natfhe union have accepted an offer recommended by their leadership to settle last year's pay claim. There was a large vote to accept in a postal ballot. Our claim, which was due in August 2002, was for parity with school teachers by 2004.
AN OPEN letter condemning racist hysteria from the media and politicians against refugees will be published as a half-page advert in the Mirror on Tuesday 29 April. This is two days before the May local council elections, where the far right and Tories hope to do well.
GUARDS IN the RMT rail workers' union on ten companies were set to strike for 24 hours on Friday of this week and Monday of next over safety. "It is the first effectively national strike we have had on the guards' side since privatisation," says Alex Holden, a guard and RMT safety rep in Manchester. "The fragmentation of the industry means we have had to have a series of synchronised ballots." The companies are:
