At a public consultation meeting last week in Islington, north London, held to consider Arsenal football club's multi-million pound redevelopment plans, a middle-aged woman stared the Lib Dem deputy council leader in the eyes. She was following a series of speakers, all of whom were up in arms at the club's big business plans.
The liaison committee of the National Network of Socialist Alliances in England met this weekend to give a push to its election campaign. The Socialist Alliance is now hoping to stand over 60 candidates in England in the general election. It is producing a national banner for the demo to save Vauxhall in Luton this weekend.
The public rally against tube privatisation earlier this month had speakers from the ASLEF, RMT and TSSA rail unions. ASLEF, which represents train drivers, and the RMT, the general rail trade union, are balloting their members together and plan joint action at the beginning of next month.
Firefighters and control room staff on Merseyside have voted by two to one for strike action to defend the service from life-threatening cuts. Fire Brigades Union branches were discussing a revised offer from management this week.
Saturday 27 January will be the first official Holocaust Memorial Day to be held in Britain. That date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious Nazi death camp. Events are taking place in schools, colleges, workplaces and town centres across Britain.
Lecturers at Coatbridge College, members of the EIS-CLA (College Lecturers Association), were to strike on Tuesday and Thursday this week over pay. The action follows two one-day strikes before Christmas. Lecturers at the college have not received a pay rise since 1998. Coatbridge is the only college in Scotland not to have settled its lecturers' pay claim for 1999-2000.
Workers at the Cowley BMW plant have defied both unions and management, and voted to reject the company's pay and conditions offer. Unions were recommending that workers at the plant accept the two-year deal that involves performance related pay and a cut in workers' break times of eight minutes a shift.
Around 30 campaigners representing different charities, church groups, political organisations and individuals met in Manchester on Monday of last week to discuss the future of their campaigns against Third World debt after the official end of Jubilee 2000.
Royal Mail workers were poised to begin a national ballot over pay as Socialist Worker went to press. Union negotiators met with management for last-ditch talks on Tuesday. Unless these produced real improvements in the existing offer union leaders had pledged to start a strike vote.
Around 2,700 members of the PCS civil servants' union who work in the Crown Prosecution Service were due to strike across England and Wales on Wednesday and Thursday over pay. Around 700 workers in the service have joined the union over the last few months.
"I've come to realise that those at the top in British society merely got rich and profited from my family, and other people who have not received justice." Those were the bitter words of Darshan Singh Chhokar, speaking at a 130-strong rally last Saturday for justice for his son who was killed in 1998. The family demanded at the Glasgow meeting that a public inquiry is held into the investigation of Surjit Singh Chhokar's death.
