THE ISSUE of pay electrified the first day of the annual conference of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) held in Eastbourne last week. Successful strike action by workers at the Bradford Telegraph and Argus group of papers has been a major boost to the fight against low pay. Conference delegates greeted Sarah Walsh, a leading member of the Bradford NUJ workplace union chapel, with massive applause.
LECTURERS AND technical support staff in the Natfhe union at Southampton City College struck for the whole of last week over pay and increasing workload. There was bitterness on the picket line towards the college principal, who derecognised the union at her previous college.
STRIKERS FROM all over Britain lobbied the national executive meeting of the civil servants' PCS union last week. They were representing 750 people who work in the government's trial Pathfinder scheme which merges job centres and benefits offices. They have been on all-out strike since at least last October.
MEDICAL SECRETARIES in Sunderland were out in numbers on the picket line on Tuesday of this week. They have escalated their action to a four-day strike. The 136 women NHS workers are determined to up the pressure on their trust bosses to put them on a higher grade.
LEADERS OF the CWU postal workers' union were set this week to recommend that workers accept a new pay offer in a postal ballot. The deal is a disgrace which will open the way to new assaults on jobs and conditions.
THE NAZI British National Party (BNP) hopes to make a historic breakthrough in the local council elections in seven weeks time on 2 May. Anti-Nazi activists are mobilising to stop it. The annual conference of the Anti Nazi League (ANL) was held in Manchester last Saturday.
SIR KEN Jackson, Tony Blair's favourite union leader and arch right winger, is being forced to fight an election for general secretary for the first time in seven years. "It's like a thunderbolt for Ken Jackson to be challenged by anyone to the left of him," says Willie Black, a member of the AEEU section of Amicus.
"IT'S FLEXIBLE working for the company, not for us. People are so fed up with it," said an MG Rover worker in Longbridge, Birmingham. Workers in the plant are voting this week in a ballot for action over pay and flexible working.
LIFT WORKERS employed by Otis, Britain's biggest lift manufacturer, began an national overtime ban last week over pay.
UNION LEADERS are to reballot hundreds of BT workers instead of calling the strikes the workers have voted for. Over 300 workers in the D&DS internal computer system support section of BT voted for action. They are opposing plans to hand them to contractor ComputaCenter. Transfer threatens workers' pay and conditions, and union organisation.
Train drivers on ScotRail struck on Wednesday of last week and on Monday, bringing services across Scotland to a halt. At the same time non-drivers on Arriva, which runs trains across the north of England, were preparing for action over Easter. This is part of their fight over pay.
