A GROUP of building workers have been picketing the Laing site off Trafalgar Square in central London. The workers, five bricklayers, had raised questions about conditions on the site. Soon afterwards their employer, Avondale, told the bricklayers there was no further work for them.
GAS WORKERS at key North Sea underwater storage facilities are planning industrial action over pay. Technicians in the MSF union working at BG offshore storage facilities voted by 96 percent to take action.
AROUND 30 people met last week in Cambridge to organise a campaign against the opening of an internment camp for asylum seekers in nearby Oakington.
UP TO 100 members of the PCS civil service union attended a lunchtime rally over pay on Friday of last week. They gathered outside deputy prime minister John Prescott's office at the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR). PCS members in the DETR have had a pay deal imposed on them after rejecting it in a ballot. The dispute is not just about the small amount of money on offer, but also over Performance Related Pay, which has been shown to discriminate against black staff and people with disabilities.
THE TROUBLES at British Airways have drawn attention away from the problems faced by BAA - the airport operator. A profits fall has led to cost cutting. The company says it may be looking for compulsory redundancies. There is no need for this immensely profitable company to make people redundant. BAA is still looking at projected profits of £306 million. The unions need to be challenging the company.
A WORKER at a non-union west London call centre has been suspended following a 45 minute stoppage by some 70 workers. Clarence Jackman works at the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) in Ealing, west London. Last Friday dozens of workers stopped work in protest at bad working conditions. The next day Clarence, an MSF member, was summoned to a meeting by management but was refused union representation by the firm, which does not recognise the union. He has now been suspended and is looking to the union to take up his case.
A MASS picket caused a three mile traffic tailback outside a Scottish Highlands oil rig fabrication yard last week. Some 150 workers employed by subcontractor Palmers downed tools and blockaded the entrance of the Barmac yard at Nigg in Easter Ross. The walkout was sparked by the death in a road accident of a 63 year old scaffolder, James Maclennan, while travelling from work late at night. Workers want shift times changed so that they do not have to set off for long journeys home in the dark.
GORDON BROWN handed Britain's biggest companies a huge incentive to carry on wrecking the Earth this week. Everyone sensible knows that action is needed over global warming. But, after intense pressure from the bosses, Brown has driven policy in completely the opposite direction.
"PRO-enterprise, pro-competition" is how chancellor Gordon Brown summed up his policy on Tuesday. The pre-budget statement handed millions more to the rich, while ignoring the needs of the many. Brown told "entrepreneurs" that he was slashing the capital gains tax on buying and selling business assets and shares from 40 to 10 percent. Bosses at the British Venture Capital Association were delighted, and hailed "a massive step in the right direction".
BROWN'S SPEECH on Tuesday gave a glowing account of the British economy. That's not how it seems to thousands of workers across Britain who learned in the last week that they face the dole.
POOR SALES of tickets for the Millennium Dome have led the government to bung the private company running it £50 million in public subsidy to cover "cash flow difficulties". The New Millennium Experience Company, the Dome's organiser, has spent £4 million on an advertising campaign to try and boost ticket sales. Prices are set at £20 for an adult and £57 for a family. But after two months not a single date, including the prestigious 1 January, has been sold out.
