Leaders of the giant public sector UNISON union hailed a deal they struck with the government over the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) last week. The union claims the deal is a victory which will stop thousands of health workers having their jobs transferred to private companies.
New Labour's Education Bill, published last week, is a privateer's dream. It simultaneously "deregulates" schools, opening the way to further involvement by private companies, and tightens the stranglehold of government bureaucrats over what is taught.
Postal Workers are set for a head-on confrontation with their bosses and the government over privatisation. The Communication Workers Union had been preparing to hold a strike ballot over pay. But it has now switched to the question of putting out to contract sections such as vehicle services, parcel deliveries and cleaning.
A Post Office disciplinary hearing last week found that Mark Dolan, treasurer of the CWU union branch in North/North West London, was innocent of the charges against him. A worker at the NDO office made a complaint against Mark after he had overheard a discussion about the World Trade Centre suicide attacks. Mark had said he was against the loss of life in New York, but that it was a result of US policies.
Burnley An important council by-election was due to take place on Thursday of this week in the Rose Hill ward in Burnley, Lancashire. The BNP Nazis were hoping to get a significant vote. They stood candidates in two council by-elections in Burnley last week.
Bus strikes get results Bus workers in two Stagecoach companies in Hastings and the north east of England have voted to accept improved pay offers. Two days of strike action by workers in Teesside, Hartlepool and Darlington forced Stagecoach management to increase their offer to a flat rate of £6 an hour.
Workers at Scottish Power in Scotland, Merseyside and north Manchester are set to take strike action on Tuesday and Wednesday. Scottish Power is one of the world's top ten utility multinationals. It also owns Southern Water and Pacificore in the US. The workers do essential jobs, maintaining and repairing breakdowns in the electricity network.
Low paid civil servants on all-out strike were joined on Monday of this week by 250 workers in Makerfield in Lancashire. The workers voted to strike for three weeks after refusing to do management's dirty work and scab on the all-out strike by civil servants at the government's new Pathfinder offices.
Library workers struck across Hackney in east London last Saturday in protest at cuts in their Saturday pay. The strike was excellently supported and very successful. It was a boost to workers and anti-cuts campaigners in their long battle against the vicious Labour-run council.
Caretakes in Edinburgh are set to take strike action to try to win more money for working long hours. Some 100 caretakers, members of the UNISON union, have agreed to boycott work for three days next week and another three days the following week. Some 90.3 percent voted for strikes in an official ballot.
Activists from seven campaigns against refugee detention centres met in Oxford last Saturday to discuss government plans to quadruple the number of asylum seekers locked up in camps.
There is one fact that all the spin surrounding chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-budget statement cannot hide. Under New Labour investment in public services in Britain will only just reach the level it was at under John Major's Tory government-and that's after Brown's supposed major boost to public spending.
