Birmingham Follow

BIRMINGHAM: Members of the FBU and other trade unionists lobbied the appeal by FBU activist Steve Godward in Birmingham last week against his sacking. The union sees what has happened to Steve, who also stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate at the general election, as a clear case of victimisation. The procedure at the appeal confirmed that. It found Steve guilty and jumped straight to upholding his sacking without even hearing the mitigation.

THERE WILL be local council elections in many parts of England outside London on Thursday 1 May. A number of Socialist Alliances, including Birmingham, Bristol and Colchester, have already selected some candidates. Many more Socialist Alliances will be selecting candidates over the next few weeks.

THE HORRIFIC killing of two young women in Birmingham on New Year's Eve has sparked a debate-and a moral panic-about gun crime. Newspapers are screaming about "warfare on our streets". They say our inner cities are awash with gun-toting crack cocaine dealers. Politicians and the police line up to point the finger of blame at hip-hop and rap bands.

CAMPAIGNERS in the Stop the War Coalition are uniting with local groups to get transport from across Britain to the 28 September demonstration. A 640-seat train is running through Glasgow and Edinburgh to the march. A further five coaches are booked from Edinburgh, and transport is organised from Greenock, Fife, Aberdeen and Dundee. In Runcorn, in the north west of England, and Bristol the postal workers' CWU union is running its own coaches to the demonstration. In Cardiff the CWU union has given £200 to help fund transport from the area. Around 100 coaches are booked from Birmingham. Around £10,000 has been raised to pay for billboard and newspaper adverts in the ru

COMRADES WHO knew Les will be sad to learn that he died on 30 July. Above all, Les believed in being an activist. He had been a car worker at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham in the 1970s and early 1980s, and after he retired he became one of the mainstays of his local Socialist Workers Party branch in the city.

THE firefighters' FBU union last week announced that it was going to recall its national conference in Manchester on 12 September in its battle over pay. This conference would start a national strike ballot to fight for basic pay of £30,000 a year.

ON 16 November 1999 Jermaine Lee, a black Birmingham postal worker, took his own life. He was 26 years old. Last week the legal investigation into the case came to its conclusion. It revealed a terrifying level of racist harassment at the Aston sorting office where Jermaine worked. There is a powerful myth that racism is generated by the "uneducated" and "ignorant" people at the bottom of society. The people higher up are allegedly more "liberal".

AIRPORT WORKERS are balloting for strike action that could hit Manchester, Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted and Birmingham airports this summer. The 1,500 workers are employed by the airport services business Aviance which is owned by the transport group Go Ahead. The workers, members of the TGWU and GMB unions, process passengers and dispatch aircraft.

OVER 2,000 people marched in support of the Palestinians in Birmingham last Saturday. The march was organised by the newly formed Birmingham Joint Committee on Palestine. It was even bigger than the march and rally in Birmingham last December against the war in Afghanistan.

BIRMINGHAM tenants delivered a body blow last weekend to the government's plans to destroy council housing. The two to one vote against privatisation shows New Labour's bullying can be beaten. Tenants were promised investment in their homes if they voted for transfer to a private housing association.

I RECENTLY attended a press conference at Birmingham Town Hall to announce the result of the council housing sell-off ballot. On my way in a press officer, power dressed in the way that only New Labour types seem to think looks good, asked me to sign the book of condolence for the Queen Mother.

GOVERNMENT MINISTERS were "stunned" and their housing policy was "hurled off course" this week when Birmingham tenants voted by 67 percent to 33 percent against housing privatisation. This was a key test case for New Labour's policy of destroying council housing. The vote shows how the gut feeling that people have against privatisation can be mobilised and focused by a strong campaign.