We have just concluded a 57 day strike. People have really sacrificed over that period. But it felt good to conclude it with a significant win and even over job security - where the company seemed intractable - we made gains.
The efforts of governments and central bankers to prop up the financial system and make workers pay for the crisis can be derailed by rising anger.
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!" English poet William Wordsworth's reaction to the fall of the Bastille in 1789 conveys the exhilaration of those precious moments when the masses overthrow an old society and build a fresh one.
Politicians and economists across the world are dusting off their copies of the works of economist John Maynard Keynes. Suddenly the free market needs rescuing and state intervention appears to be the only solution to the crash.
"We need a tougher immigration policy and we need to stop seeing it as a dilemma. It's not. It's easy. I'm going to do my best to help the British back to work." These are the words of Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas.
When education secretary Ed Balls announced the abolition of Key Stage 3 SATs examinations for 14 year olds this month virtually no one came to their defence.
The crisis of international capitalism will have a myriad of unforeseen consequences, one of which will be its impact on the privatisation of public services.
In October the government increased its guarantee on savings from £35,000 to £50,000. This means that if you have savings of up to this amount, and your bank goes bust, the government will reimburse you.
The £5.5 billion bailout of Lloyds TSB came as Gordon Brown promised to crack down on bankers' bonuses. But the bank's chief executive, Eric Daniels, thinks otherwise, telling employees that they actually faced "very, very few restrictions".
Manfred Ecker reports from Vienna on what is behind the growth of support for the Austrian far right parties.
The era of globalisation meant that national states would have no role in modern capitalism. This was a myth accepted by many, left and right. Mark L Thomas argues this was never the case and looks at the impact of recent state interventions to rescue the free market.
The collapse of the subprime mortgage market last year which spread to the global banking system is now biting into the real economy and employment, writes Kevin Devine.
