HUNDREDS OF civil servants have packed PCS union democracy campaign meetings around the country. They are furious that discredited general secretary Barry Reamsbottom is trying to oust elected general secretary Mark Serwotka. Over 150 people met in Sheffield on Tuesday of last week, and 140 met in Manchester the next day.
THE DUMAN family's claim for asylum was refused on Thursday 4 July. They are to be deported to Germany on Wednesday morning, 10 July. The Dumans' solicitor is making further representations. The family had left Turkey because, as Kurds, they had suffered years of harassment.
STEEL WORKERS employed by AvestaPolarit face an attack on their pension fund. The move comes after giant steel company Corus sold its shares in AvestaPolarit to the Finnish firm Outokumpu. The pension scheme dates back to the days of the nationalised British Steel company. It is a final salary pension that is more secure than the stakeholder pensions that are gambled on the stockmarket.
Hackney bins the profiteers HACKNEY LABOUR council in east London has carried out a humiliating U-turn over privatisation. It has announced it is taking the bins and street cleaning service back into council control. Serviceteam, the private firm that ran the services for the last 18 months, made up to £9 million "excess profit" from the cash-strapped council. While the privateers cashed in, crucial services have been shut down because the council has "no money".
MEDIA REPORTS from Northern Ireland over the last week have been about the sectarian Orange bigots marching at Drumcree and in Belfast. But a different kind of march took place there last Saturday which didn't receive any media coverage in Britain. It gave a glimpse of the alternative to sectarianism.
JOURNALISTS AT the Independent and Independent on Sunday are close to winning a deal on pay that could result in immediate rises of up to 17 percent for the lowest paid. Journalists at the London-based papers recently held a "mandatory chapel meeting", a traditional form of strike action in the print and media industry where workers stop work to attend a union meeting.
THE TRANSPORT firm Arriva is due to face action by two groups of angry workers this week. Arriva bus workers in Northumberland are set to hold a further one-day strike over pay on Friday of this week. Arriva Trains Northern conductors are then due to strike the next day, Saturday 13 July, in their ongoing dispute over pay. Their action will affect services across the north of England.
AIRPORT WORKERS are balloting for strike action that could hit Manchester, Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted and Birmingham airports this summer. The 1,500 workers are employed by the airport services business Aviance which is owned by the transport group Go Ahead. The workers, members of the TGWU and GMB unions, process passengers and dispatch aircraft.
