Last week's strike on London Underground struck a powerful blow to New Labour's privatisation scheme. But there is now a danger that a version of John Prescott's plan to hand the tube to private contractors could still go ahead after union leaders called off strikes planned for this week and next.
A rash of disputes has broken out in councils across the north west of England. They are driven by workers' anger at New Labour councils' cuts and huge attacks on working conditions. Thousands of council workers are involved in the battles. It is the first time many of them have attended mass meetings or stood on picket lines. All are determined not to let New Labour get away with slashing services or driving workers into the ground. In KNOWSLEY council workers are fighting against the council's attempt to increase their working week from 35 hours to 37 hours. They held their second round of action last week.
Socialist Alliance members and No Sweat activists in east London protested outside Gap's flagship store in Canary Wharf last Saturday
There were nearly 100 people on the picket line outside Rolls-Royce's Ansty plant near Coventry last week. The size of the picket was totally illegal according to the anti trade union laws, but nobody cared.
Our strike has ended in victory after a week of unofficial action. It has been a revelation for all of us. It began over a small incident but quickly escalated to being about intimidation, harassment and victimisation. Royal Mail changed tactics for this strike. Once it started they were out to sack reps, to break the union in Oxford as an example to elsewhere. But we beat the bastards. We survived because of local and national solidarity.
Over 70 students at the University of East Anglia demonstrated against Nestlé last week at the official opening of the new PFI-funded campus sports park. We were demonstrating against the sale of Nestlé products in the sports centre and carried banners saying, "Nestlé-show some milk of human kindness" and "People not profit". One banner was done in the style of a Kit Kat wrapper and said, "Nestlé kills kids".
Around 250 taxi drivers at Gatwick airport have been sacked, but they are fighting back. They lost their jobs when they refused to work for Excellent Connection and Checker Cars, two super-firms that have been handed the franchise at the north and south terminals at Gatwick airport by BAA.
Some 60 workers and trade unionists attended Wigan's first Socialist Alliance rally last week. It was one of the best political meetings in the area for years. The branch secretary and both assistant secretaries of the local UNISON branch turned up, together with at least eight shop stewards from across many different unions. Community activists and a local Green were there, together with two tenants' reps.
On 5 March the world's biggest pharmaceutical firms are going to court to stop South Africans receiving cheaper AIDS drugs. If they succeed they will pass a death sentence on millions of the poorest people suffering from AIDS.
London's tube network ground to a halt on Monday. Train drivers in the ASLEF union threw up picket lines at depots across the capital, and other workers refused to cross them.
London Underground management was forced to admit that Monday's strike paralysed the tube.
