HUNDREDS OF workers at Ford Halewood on Merseyside walked out in disgust last week after they heard of the suicide of a fellow worker. Halewood is the third Ford plant in the last month to be hit by an unofficial walkout.
THE PRESS presented the recent meeting between Jacques Nasser of Ford and Bill Morris of the TGWU as a solution to the problems of racism and bullying at Ford's Dagenham plant. But many workers at Dagenham are left wondering what the deal will mean for them. Ford has agreed to a plan from the unions - the TGWU, AEEU, GMB and MSF - for a "Diversity and Equality Assessment Review".
UNION OFFICIALS will meet with the Ford motor company next week for three days of negotiations over the pay deal. Workers are angry with a whole host of Ford's proposals. "This is a lousy pay deal with strings," says a worker. "We don't want corridor annualised hours and we don't want attacks on our union negotiating structures. That would be going backwards, not forwards. But we do want better pay and two hours off the working week. Ford will have to think again."
SIR KEN Jackson, the right wing leader of the AEEU, has rammed through a rotten pay deal. Electricians in the construction industry voted to accept a pay offer by 3,324 votes to 2,636. Jackson claimed that electricians would get a 30 percent pay rise. But because they will lose overtime payments and travelling expenses many electricians will in fact be worse off.
WORKERS AT Leicestershire sock manufacturer Pex have mounted protests after the company locked the workers out and their pay cheques bounced last week. Pex manager Andrea Dellavolta disappeared owing workers their wages and £18,000 in union contributions that he has deducted from wages.
FIREFIGHTERS IN West Yorkshire are planning a demonstration after the fire authority voted to press ahead with its plans to merge the Bramley and Pudsey fire stations in Leeds. This is despite firefighters handing in an 11,000 signature petition to the fire authority meeting.
ZUBER LATIF from India has won his battle against deportation. He has lived in Britain for 12 years and is married to a British citizen. The Home Office had claimed that their marriage was "ill timed" and was not grounds for Zuber staying in Britain, despite the fact that the couple had a child.
POSTAL WORKERS at the giant Mount Pleasant office in central London are waiting to hear if their site is to lose 1,600 jobs. Royal Mail plans to shift most of Britain's international mail work to a new "greenfield" site at Langley near Slough in Berkshire. That would mean huge job losses at Mount Pleasant - and at Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Reading and Dover. The key date is 15 November when the Royal Mail board meets.
THREE QUARTERS of voters believe that the government should take Railtrack back into public ownership. That was the finding of a poll published in the Guardian on Tuesday of this week.
A STRIKE to protect rail passengers' safety was declared illegal by high court judge Mr Justice Turner on Friday of last week. Rail bosses want to change the guards' duties so they are no longer responsible for train safety. Instead they will be glorified ticket collectors and food sellers.
MUCH OF the press has flown into a French bashing frenzy. The pretext is the refusal of the French government to accept assurances that British beef is safe and free from the BSE "mad cow" disease. The foreigner bashing tabloids have seized on the revelations that some French farmers have illegally been using sewage based animal feed for their cows and pigs.
THE NEW Labour government ordered the police to crack down on protests against Chinese president Jiang Zemin's tour of Britain, according to a source in Blair's cabinet. People who had suffered years of imprisonment in China's jails or were demanding human rights were blocked and manhandled by the Metropolitan Police.
