CONTROL STAFF in the London Fire Brigade have voted unanimously to ballot for a work to rule and strike action over congestion charges. An angry mass meeting last Sunday left GMB and Unison union officials in no doubt of the strength of feeling. A claim was submitted for compensation for congestion charges over a year ago.
THE CAMPAIGN against racism and the victimisation of union stewards in Hackney, east London, received a boost on Tuesday of last week. Hackney council has lifted the suspensions of two of the three Unison union stewards.
WEST MIDLANDS fire bosses have taken an incredibly spiteful decision to victimise not only a well known union activist but to make his three year old son suffer too. Fire chiefs have ordered toddler Connor Godward to quit his nursery.
THERE IS growing evidence that the BBC is slanting its key news programmes to minimise anti-war views. The BBC has ordered employees to censor "extremist" anti-war people from phone-ins and live debates.
THE government's vendetta against the firefighters was poised to come to a head at the end of this week. Labour ministers told fire authority employers to table demands for swingeing cuts and worse working conditions on Thursday after weeks of talks with the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).
THE LONGEST rail dispute in British history is over. The RMT rail union reluctantly accepted an offer from Arriva Trains Northern for conductors and guards last week. "The deal will still leave us the lowest paid guards of any rail company in Britain," says one union rep.
WORKERS AT an engineering factory in Hereford walked out on a seven-day strike last week. The 400 members of the GMB union went on strike after rejecting a 1 percent pay offer with reduced overtime pay and limited sick pay. A senior shop steward at the plant, Phil Cogzell, said, "All we want is to maintain a stable income. The offer was rejected by 82 percent." The factory is the second biggest business in Hereford. The workforce are demanding a 3 percent rise.
I WAS shocked and very angry last week on hearing that Candy Udwin and Dave Carr had been expelled from the Unison union for actively opposing PFI. We all thought the witch-hunt against leading left activists had drawn to a close, and that the worst they would face was a period of suspension.
"WE ARE an anti-war and a pro-war party. We are opposed, under any circumstances, to the unleashing of mass murder on the innocent civilians of Iraq. But we are also committed to a war - a war on poverty and inequality." In his keynote speech Tommy Sheridan summed up the two key issues that dominated the Scottish Socialist Party's (SSP) annual conference held in Glasgow last weekend.
