MANY OF the elderly are set to become victims of the market in old people's homes. The private sector runs many nursing homes after local authorities came under pressure from the Tory government to sell them off.
WORK MAKES you ill, and things are getting worse, says a new Health and Safety Executive study. It found a 122 percent increase in work related illness between 1990 and 1995-6. As many as 1.3 million people reported work related illnesses in 1995-6. Some 58 percent of them suffered from upper limb, lower limb or back disorders, and about a third took time off because of stress. Manual workers account for 72 percent of all reportable workplace injuries.
THE INQUEST into the death of 28 year old Peter Knox began this week. He was found dead in Belmarsh prison in January. He was the fourteenth prisoner to die in Belmarsh since it opened in 1981. A recent report produced by the inspector of prisons showed that between 1988 and 1998 there were 600 "self inflicted" deaths in prison custody. Peter's family says he should have been in a hospital due to a mental condition.
THE POLICE Complaints Authority is to investigate eight officers who were called to investigate a racist attack on a black college lecturer but who then, allegedly, beat up the lecturer. Denese Mapp is a science lecturer at Haringey College in north London. She says she phoned the police after a man threatened her with a knife and shouted racist abuse at her family.
WEEKS AFTER Tony Blair proclaimed at Labour's conference that the class struggle is over, a damning new report shows that class division has never been greater in Britain. The survey was based on four million households across Britain. It shows that after two years of Labour in office inequality is growing. For a few there is immense wealth and opulence. For the majority there is insecurity and either very real poverty or the threat of poverty.
WE WERE told that "it could never happen here" after the recent nuclear disaster in Japan. Yet it nearly DID happen here, according to a series of revelations in the Observer newspaper.
NEW LABOUR was humiliated by a court ruling in Scotland last week. Three protesters who had caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at the Faslane Trident nuclear submarine base on the Clyde were cleared of any offence. Sheriff Margaret Gimble ordered a jury at her Greenock court to acquit the three after ruling that nuclear weapons were illegal under international law.
An excellent 450 students registered for last weekend's Students Fighting For Socialism, with 43 people joining the SWP. Two things were clear from the weekend. Firstly there is a real possibility of a major fight in the colleges over the question of fees. Across the country we should be building the national demonstration called by NUS on 25 November, building support for non-payment of fees and arguing for occupations. But on a wider level there is a widespread rage against capitalism. If Socialist Worker Student Societies are at the centre of the agitation over fees and address the wider anti-capitalist mood, we can build in any and every college.
HUNDREDS OF Parcelforce workers struck unofficially for two days at the Canning Town site in east London last week. They won brilliant solidarity from other depots. But national union officials condemned their action. Then they narrowly persuaded a mass meeting to agree a return to work with very little gained from management. A CWU union member at Canning Town Parcelforce told Socialist Worker, "We have been shunted back to work when with a bit more support from the top we could have won."
OVER 1,200 students at Cambridge University demonstrated last Saturday against rises in room rents. The demonstration was part of a campaign which has included rent strikes at some of the colleges this term. Around 240 students at King's College have pledged not to pay their rent, which is set to rise by around 40 percent over the next five years.
"I'LL GO anywhere in the world to get this out in the open." Those are the words of Jim Stanley - brother of Harry Stanley, who was killed by police in east London.
ABOUT 40,000 electricians in the construction industry have just finished balloting over their two year pay offer. The result was due after Socialist Worker went to press.
