A THREAT to jobs provoked an unofficial walkout by some 390 Rolls-Royce workers in Bristol on Thursday of last week. Workers in the combustion section, who are not known for their militancy, downed tools after their management announced 10 percent would lose their jobs in the next four months.
A 500-strong demonstration marched on RAF Fairford last Saturday, and demanded entry to the base to conduct an inspection for weapons of mass destruction. The Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors led the march through the village of Fairford.
THE MEHMETI family have won the right to stay in Britain after a ten-month campaign to stop them being sent back to Kosovo. Thousands of people in Bristol backed the campaign - trade unionists, community groups, political groups and even the local Evening Post newspaper. The adjudicator in the case said that given "the level of community ties and huge local support for them remaining, and given their particular difficulties, the balance is in favour of the family remaining in the UK". Jo Benefield
THE GMB union has suspended strikes by 6,000 gas safety engineers. Bosses offered workers at Transco, the privatised monopoly that runs the gas pipeline network, a pay rise of just 3 percent. This was conditional on changes to hours, allowances and sick pay that would have cancelled out the pay rise.
SOME 4,500 Peugeot workers are set to ballot for strike action in the new year after talks over the pay claim broke down. A series of one-day strikes are planned. The talks followed a 90 percent rejection of the company offer (worth 7.3 percent over two years) in a ballot. The company also wants the shopfloor to increase their pension contributions by 1 percent.
LABOUR-RUN Hackney council has suspended three key union activists who all face dismissal for alleged gross misconduct. They are Unison joint branch secretaries Brian Debus and Will Leng plus equalities officer John Page.
OVER 80 people came to a meeting organised by the Argentine Solidarity Campaign on Thursday of last week. They heard an inspiring talk from two workers from the one-year occupation at the Zanon ceramic factory in Neuquen, Argentina. The two workers, Natalio Navarrete and Mariano Pedrero, had attended the European Social Forum in Florence, and afterwards toured Italy addressing Fiat workers fighting job losses.
THREATS OF strike action have won an increased pay offer for airport workers. The workers include firefighters, security staff and engineers at major airports including Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted. The workers' TGWU union had been pushed into opposing the offer by anger from the rank and file after a previous strike was suspended.
A NATIONAL campaign has been launched to protest against attempts to crush the anti-capitalist movement in Italy. Around 80 people demonstrated outside the Italian Embassy in London on Thursday of last week.
SOME 600 workers at the Scottish Agricultural College voted by 63 percent to strike over a deal that amounts to a pay freeze for most staff.
