Issues Follow Follow

Air Traffic controllers in the IPMS union voted at a delegate conference last weekend to ballot members on strike action if the government continues its plans to privatise the National Air Traffic Services (NATS).

Many delegates at the PCS national forum for pay negotiators were angry at the government's tight restrictions on civil service pay.

The cost of childcare has soared under New Labour to an average of £6,000 a year. A survey by the reputable Daycare Trust released this week found that a typical nursery place for a two year old now costs £110 a week. That's £30 a week more than in 1997 when New Labour was elected. In London the typical cost is now £135 a week, putting childcare "out of many parents' reach", says the trust. At the same time many councils are also cutting back on nursery places. The facts make a nonsense of the government's claims to have put working families with childcare at the centre of its policies.

Some 120 people packed into a meeting in York last week to fight proposals to build a shopping centre next to the historic Clifford's Tower.

"They call it Corus. It ought to be Con Us. They con us into working harder and harder for them, they get our union leaders and the government to go along with them, and then they throw us on the scrap heap if they can't make enough money," says Henry Williams.

Some 1,300 council workers in Knowsley, members of the public sector union UNISON, struck on Thursday of last week against our bosses' plans to make us work longer hours. The strike was absolutely solid across the council.

You can tell an election is on the way. Last Monday's Guardian signalled that Gordon Brown is planning a £3 billion package aimed at families with children. Some believe there's more to this than just the usual hustling for votes. Roy Hattersley argues the New Labour project was already dead before Peter Mandelson's fall:

Willerby Holiday Homes was shut down on Thursday and Friday of last week after 300 UCATT union members staged an unofficial strike in support of their demands for full time on-site shop stewards.

Just who will be pulling the strings under new US president George W Bush? Take a look at some of the key figures in Bush's new government.

Royal Mail workers across Britain are voting on the latest pay deal. After months of negotiations, management and union leaders have agreed a 3.2 percent increase.

A 1996 report into policing in Tottenham, north London, described how officers believed they were "at war" with the local community. Despite the promises made after the Lawrence report two years ago, that war is still going on. People in Tottenham are sickened by the continuing casualties.

Around 250 people marched through Leicester last Saturday in solidarity with asylum seekers following the death of Ramin Khaleghi, the refugee who took his own life two weeks ago.