Governors at George Green secondary school in east London's Tower Hamlets voted on Monday to reject being part of the New Labour council's plan to introduce a borough-wide PFI privatisation scheme. The vote is a boost to the fight to sink the scheme. The council wants 47 schools in the borough to be part of the PFI scheme involving a deal with giant firm Babcock and Brown. A lobby against the sell-off was planned outside the borough-wide governors' meeting on Thursday.
Workers at plastics firm Wardle Storeys in Brantham, near Manningtree in Essex, were to strike on Wednesday this week over pay. It is the first in a series of three one-day strikes. Bosses have offered a pay rise of just 2.1 percent to the 300 workers at the site. Peter Stephen, the TGWU union's regional industrial organiser, says, "Our message to the company is that our members are solid. We don't accept pay cuts."
Hackney council workers in east London will end their next round of strikes with a rally whose line-up includes Tony Benn MP, Guardian journalist Gary Younge, Mark Serwotka, recently elected PCS general secretary and Jeremy Hardy. Strikes are planned for three days, 29-31 January, against the council's cuts and privatisation plans.
Railtrack bosses sent the government a blackmail note this week-"Give us £1 billion or the passengers get it." And New Labour is considering coughing up.
Back jobs fight at Vauxhall Luton – Demo: Sat 20 January, Luton
Steel giant Corus is pushing ahead with redundancies and plant closures. That is the real message from a meeting it held with union leaders on Monday. It focused on the results of redundancies that have already been announced. But many more job losses are coming.
Vauxhall workers in Luton have launched a fightback to save their jobs. Unions at the plant have called a demonstration on Saturday 20 January. They are asking other workers to join it.
Bosses at Goodyear in Wolverhampton want to slash 500 jobs in revenge for workers' refusal to accept pay cuts and longer hours. Management and union leaders recommended to workers that they accept an 11 percent pay cut and longer hours.
Tony Blair is "absolutely proud" of the string of businessmen who have bunged money into New Labour's coffers. Millions of people who have voted Labour will instead be sickened at Blair's courting of the rich. Businessmen do not give money for nothing. They expect New Labour to bow to their interests.
The trial of 12 Afghans charged in connection with a hijacked plane that flew into Britain last year was due to begin on Thursday. But New Labour should be put in the dock over its treatment of the remaining 88 Afghan passengers who have asked for asylum in Britain.
The family of a black postal worker driven to suicide by racism at work have won the first step in their battle for justice. The victim's parents won the right this week to a posthumous employment tribunal hearing over racial discrimination. Jermaine Lee, a 26 year old Birmingham postal worker, hanged himself in November 1999.
"The pledge of John Prescott to cut the number of car journeys in the first five years of Labour rule has been abandoned. There has in fact been a remorseless increase in traffic growth."
