SACKED WORKERS from Friction Dynamics have won a victory at an industrial tribunal. The tribunal ruled that the 86 workers were unfairly sacked from the North Wales factory eight weeks after going on strike against a 15 percent wage cut. The workers have maintained 24-hour picket lines for the 18 months since they were sacked.
STRIKING NHS workers gathered at the windswept Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, on Thursday of last week. Freezing rain did not dampen the spirit of the workers, who had gathered to lobby the NHS trust demanding an end to poverty pay.
UNITED Nations weapons inspectors went into Iraq again on Monday. US president George Bush is still desperate to go to war against Iraq. "The inspections cannot work-period," said a senior US Pentagon official last week.
FIREFIGHTERS RISK their lives for just £21,531 a year. They were absolutely right to reject the Bain inquiry into the fire service. This inquiry was supposed to be "independent". But it accepted the government's pay policy wholesale.
THOUSANDS OF postal workers could soon be on strike. The result of a strike ballot among 3,500 workers in the cash handling and distribution section was due to be announced this week. Everyone expected it to be a big yes for action and that leaders of the CWU union would have to immediately set out dates for strikes.
WORKERS AT Resourcesaver in Bristol took strike action for 48 hours last week in protest at management reneging on an agreement for a 40-hour week. They were also protesting against the continuing practice of compulsory overtime.
THE STOP the War Coalition is organising a national conference for Saturday 7 December. The coalition has built the resistance to Bush and Blair's war drive in Iraq. It co-organised a 400,000-strong march in London on 28 September and called the nationwide day of action on 31 October.
THERE WAS a highly successful strike of lecturers in the Natfhe and ATL unions, and college workers in the Unison union across England and Wales on Tuesday of last week. Socialist Worker received reports from a number of colleges that we couldn't fit in last week:
TRADE UNIONISTS and local activists in York have launched an anti-privatisation campaign called PFI Watch. This follows the decision of the New Labour council to push ahead with PFI projects in three York primary schools.
WORKERS CLOSED down courts across the West Midlands on Monday of this week. AMO, the union for magistrates' courts staff, called the first strike in the courts' history. Hundreds of union members stayed away from work demonstrating their anger at proposals to harmonise pay that will see 150 staff take pay cuts.
STREET CLEANERS were on the picket lines at Ley Street depot in Redbridge, east London, last week. The Unison union members are part of the Londonwide campaign for £4,000 London weighting for council workers. Steve Wheeler, a street orderly on Wanstead High Street, said, "We had a pay cut ten years ago. People are fed up living hand to mouth. We are fed up working seven days a week for this money. It's wrong for the government to give themselves a 40 percent pay rise when they don't give it to the rest of us."
