WOMEN IN one of South Africa's poorest townships, Wentworth on the edge of Durban, issued a statement about why they are protesting at the Earth Summit. They have called their grassroots organisation the Wentworth Summit on Sickness and Death (WSSD), mirroring the official title of the world leaders' gathering, the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Home secretary David Blunkett was dealt a blow in court last week in his campaign against a refugee family. When Blunkett threw the Ahmadis out of Britain he claimed they could settle in Germany instead.
BRITISH ENERGY, the privatised nuclear giant, needs to come up with around £450 million to avoid collapse. The company doesn't have the money. A secret plan, codenamed Project Blue, has been drawn up by government officials. It involves taking British Energy back into public ownership, costing a minimum of £500 million.
THE FALL in the stockmarket is having a devastating effect on pensions. The Pearl Assurance company has announced that it is slashing payouts on endowments and pension policies. Life insurance policies maturing this autumn will be cut by 12.5 percent, while pension policies will be cut by as much as 15 percent.
WORKERS AT Caparo Steel in Scunthorpe, Tredegar and Wrexham held a second one-day strike over pensions last week. They planned another strike this week. The dispute is over plans to replace their current final salary pension scheme with a stakeholder pension scheme.
ARRIVA TRAINS Northern workers reached a decisive stage in their long-running pay fight last weekend. They struck for the 18th time on Saturday. The action by 650 guards was again solid, and Arriva management again arrogantly dismissed it.
JOURNALISTS AT the Rotherham Advertiser launched their first six days of strike action over pay with a solidarity rally last Saturday. The NUJ chapel (union branch) has decided to fight low pay, following the successes at Bradford, Spalding, Guardian Media in Manchester and elsewhere. Suzanne Roberts, mother of chapel at the Spalding Guardian, and a representative from the EMAP Health Magazines NUJ chapel - who are on a 24-hour strike over pay this Friday - spoke of a changing mood among journalists.
"WE'LL BE fighting the May 2003 Scottish elections in a very different climate from 1999, when Tommy Sheridan won our single seat in the Scottish Parliament. Then capitalism seemed the only show in town. Today the war drums are beating, the stock exchange is still sliding, and there is a shift to the left in the trade union movement. The conditions are much more favourable for us."
OVER 80,000 members of the PCS civil servants' union are to be balloted over a new pay deal in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in September. DWP bosses have offered workers on the lowest grades a 4 percent pay rise. But this will still leave those on the lowest grade on a minimum of under £10,000 a year.
MEMBERS OF the GMB union at the two Lupton and Place die casting factories in Burnley struck for three days last week. The 100 workers were set to hold another three one-day strikes next week. Talks were scheduled for Tuesday of this week. Management had withdrawn their measly 1 percent pay offer, which was only conditional on selling some land and was not to be backdated.
WORKERS AT the Massey Ferguson tractor factory in Coventry are set to ballot for strike action against the closure of the plant. Over 1,000 angry workers, members of the TGWU union, packed into a mass meeting on Wednesday of last week. They overwhelmingly rejected a redundancy package from Agco, the US company which runs Massey Ferguson.
"LISTEN TO the workers!" "Could you live on our pay?" These were some of the shouts which met Scottish health minister Malcolm Chisholm as his car swept into the Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock, near Glasgow, on Friday of last week. Chisholm was officially welcomed by a row of suited hospital managers. But first he was challenged by a lively demonstration of over 100 angry and militant pickets, on their fifth day of an unofficial strike against low pay. The strike was continuing at the beginning of the week.
