At a Marxist forum in Tower Hamlets, east London, last week, Sarah Danchie, an economics student from Queen Mary and Westfield College, joined 30 others to debate imperialism, globalisation, the state and war. Sarah was among 18 others who had come for their first time to a Marxist forum:
"We are all pissed off with the decision to go back to work. None of us wanted to, but we all have families and bills to pay." So said one of the Caterpillar workers after a mass meeting in Peterlee, east Durham, on Sunday.
The national strike of tens of thousands of civil servants in the PCS union working in job centres and benefits offices is reaching a crucial point. We are striking over the removal of safety screens in the newly merged Jobcentre Plus offices.
"This is the first strike in this office's history. It tells you something. This office isn't militant-people have just had enough." That's what one of the 40 civil service strikers in London told Socialist Worker outside London's Millbank Tower, home to New Labour, on Wednesday of last week.
The campaign to stop the privatisation of over 80,000 council homes in Glasgow is shifting into top gear, with tenants due to start voting in just over a week's time.
PROTESTERS from both Salford and Manchester's Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers protested outside the Dallas Court Reporting Centre in Salford last week. Many asylum seekers within a 25-mile radius of the centre now have to report there instead of their local police station, and no help is given with the cost of transport.MARY BLACK
Protesters in Hounslow, west London, followed up their recent 3,000-strong demonstration against education cuts with a lobby of 400 people last week. The protest has clearly rattled the Labour group in the council. Councillors are attacking Labour MP Ann Keen for doing nothing to stop the reduction in government funding which is behind the cuts.
The national council of the Socialist Alliance last week discussed building the trade union conference on 16 March. This is centred on the debate about where money from the unions' political funds should go.
A national postal strike could begin a week next Wednesday, 6 March, union leaders announced last week. Talks are still continuing, but the union says that if there is no agreement then strike dates have been "pencilled in".
BT workers lobbied private firm ComputaCentre in London last week, and staged another protest at BT Centre, also in London. They were protesting at plans to transfer hundreds of workers in the D&DS section of the company out of BT. If the move goes ahead as planned in March it will give the green light for BT to extend this subcontracting, and with it attacks on workers' conditions across the company.
Two more NUJ journalists union chapels (workplace branches) on local newspapers have voted to ballot for strike action in a new campaign to end low pay. After victory in the first strike over pay for more than a decade at the Bradford Telegraph and Argus group, journalists at the Wakefield Express and Yorkshire Post and Leeds Evening Post have voted for strike ballots.
"The airport's profits are sky high and they want to employ us on Burger King wages." That was how one striker last week summed up the anger of security workers at Manchester airport.
