"MAYBE I was naive when this began," says Steve Kendall from Stevenage. "But during the eight-day strike I realised just how much support we could get. You don't get it by standing around burning wood, but by getting out into workplaces and communities. That's one of the biggest lessons we've learned in my area. Now we are saying the union has to come up with what to do next. We are looking for someone to come up with something. We are still determined to win. The attacks on us have hardened the mood."
THE multinational car company Ford was forced to pay out £150,000 to former worker Shinder Singh Nagra last week after he suffered racist abuse at Ford's Dagenham plant. Shinder Singh Nagra won an industrial tribunal in April. He will also receive a medical disability pension of £12,000 a year for the rest of his life.
NEARLY 200 people took part in a debate at Edinburgh University last week on the prospects for peace in the Middle East. It was organised by the student society People & Planet. John Chalcraft, an Edinburgh politics lecturer, and Chris Doyle, from CAABU (Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding), explained why Palestinians had rejected the "peace offers".
AROUND 500 people came to a brilliant Love Music Hate Racism club night in Manchester last Saturday. "It was a fun and defiant event against all the racist and Nazi crap," said one clubber.
SOCIALIST WORKER asks our readers to send cards or letters of support to victims of miscarriages of justice at Christmas. They include:
THE "GRANTS not fees" demonstration on Wednesday of last week was more militant than any student demo for years. If it hadn't been for the downpour that day it would probably have been the biggest demo for years too.
HOUSING privatisation plans in Haringey, north London, have been blocked by tenants. A few weeks ago we found out that the council was about to use funds from the council's "ring-fenced homelessness budget" towards a £612,000 consultancy contract.
TEACHERS AT Kingsland School in Hackney, east London, are to ballot for strikes over the sacking of their union rep, Indro Sen. Teachers in four other schools are to hold consultative strike ballots over the same issue.
PRESS AND paintline section members at Raven Manufacturing on the Altham Industrial Estate near Burnley have halted their strikes. This follows a letter from management threatening to sack them. The bosses' letter said they could do this under the law which allows sacking after eight weeks of a strike.
AROUND 6,000 gas engineers have voted to go on strike for better pay. The engineers work for Transco, the privatised monopoly that runs the national gas pipe network. Transco offered them a 3 percent pay rise, conditional on changes to working hours and cuts in allowances and sick pay. The workers voted to reject the offer by 5,700 to 60. The vote for strike action was just as overwhelming.
DRIVERS ON First North Western were set to strike this weekend as they resumed action over pay. This follows the rejection of a terrible offer from their management. Strikes would hit the company hard in the run-up to Christmas and could coincide with action on two other rail companies.
