PROTESTERS AGAINST the government's brutal new laws on refugees took to the streets of London, Glasgow and Manchester last week.
ACTIVISTS IN the PCS civil servants' union are preparing for a key battle in their union. The union is set to ballot all its members in February about introducing annual national executive elections and conferences. If this is voted through it will massively increase democracy in the union. Socialist Mark Serwotka won the election for general secretary of the PCS in December 2000.
FOUR AND a half thousand job losses. Over 150 fire stations to close. Less fire cover at the times people are most likely to be killed by fires. Intolerable working hours and a broken trade union. That is what the government is demanding firefighters accept after their union has bent over backwards to seek compromise over their pay claim. The responsibility for renewed strikes by 52,000 firefighters and control room staff lies squarely with New Labour.
BRITISH ambassadors were called back to London for a crisis meeting this week. The move was in response to growing panic in the government over global opposition to war on Iraq. Many of the ambassadors are worried that the drive to war is "radicalising" people around the world.
AFTER 31 people were killed in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash in 1999 deputy prime minister John Prescott promised that safety would be the top priority on the railways. Money would be "no object", he said, when it came to installing the new safety system.
"WE'VE WORKED our guts out at this plant and over the years they've made millions from us. Now because they want to make even more money they're throwing us on the streets." That was Andy's angry reaction this week. He is one of 500 workers sacked by Fullarton Computer Industries at Gourock, Inverclyde.
HUNDREDS of delegates were set to gather in London on Saturday for the conference of the Stop the War Coalition. There are now 13 national trade unions affiliated to the coalition as well as many campaigns, and community and student groups. The conference will be a crucial staging post in building the 15 February international day of action.
THE PRESS has suddenly picked up that Tony Blair is going to get a rough ride trying to push his "modernisation" proposals through the health service. The Guardian ran a front page story on New Year's Eve headlined "Pay Rebuff Threatens NHS Reform". It reported the growing opposition to the government's proposed new pay package for health workers, Agenda for Change.
TALKS BETWEEN the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), local employers and ACAS were due to begin this week. The FBU has called two 48- hour strikes for 28 January and 1 February.
FIREFIGHTER Steve Cracknell is standing for the Socialist Alliance in a council by-election taking place in Haringey, north London, on Thursday 23 January. Steve is the branch secretary of Hornsey fire station which is in the borough.
MEAN BOSSES at a meat factory in Kirkconnell, Dumfriesshire, are docking their workers £1,000 a week for the time they spend in the toilet. Around 200 staff at the Brown Brothers' factory have been issued with smart cards which deduct their pay for the time they're away from the factory floor. "We have to go through a turnstile to the toilet," said one angry worker.
